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THE CALL OF THE SEA 



THE CALL OF THE SEA 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

L. FRANK TOOKER 



3^ 



(i2M^^^* ''Uv' 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1902 



THE ' 
CO' 

T-. ^ 

CLASS a ^Xc ^^o. 
COPY 3. 




Copyright, 1902, by 
The Century Co. 

Published October, iqo2 



THE DEVINNE PRESS 



TO 
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



The Call of the Sea 3 

He Bringeth Them unto their Desired 

Haven" 7 

The Last Fight 12 

On Gilgo Beach 18 

The Return 21 

Becalmed 24 

The Voyager 26 

Homeward Bound 28 

The Sea-king 30 

The Return of the Captain 32 

The Captain Ashore 37 

The Old Man 40 

The Second Mate 47 

Rainy Twilight 52 



Vll 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Flower of Love 54 

Thou and I 56 

The Lost Kingdom 58 

The Heart of Truth 61 

Dear Heart, Where hast Thou Wandered? " 64 

Concerning One 66 

His Quest 67 

April 69 

Song 70 

Sleep 72 

Love Once Made his Home with Me" ... 73 

An Idealist 75 

A Song for the Hopeless 79 

My Captain 81 

March 83 

When the Last Hour shall Come " .... 84 

The Road We Came 86 

Near Sunset 95 

Indian Summer 96 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

In November 97 

A Winter Morning 98 

In Shadow 99 

Marsyas lOI 

The Dreamer 103 

Once with Daphne 106 

The Flight 108 

The Strayed Reveler no 

In Masquerade 112 

Sir Launcelot 113 

A Poet 115 

The Flight to the Hills 116 

The Messenger 121 

Chivalry 131 

Ulysses Grown Old 133 

Romance 135 

The Journey 138 

In Exile 141 

In the South 142 



THE CALL OF THE SEA 



THE CALL OF THE SEA 

Day and night I have heard it : " Arise and come to 
thine own! 
The surf is loud on the shore, and the spume is 
white in the gale. 
This is the rapture of living. Oh, how can the land 
atone 
For the loss of the vibrant shrouds and the joy of 
the slanting sail? 

'* Follow, then, follow the free wind over the waste of 
gray! 
The sweep of the billows shall rock thee, the scent 
of the brine shall allure ; 
Though Death and Oblivion mock thee, thou shalt 
joy in thy master's sway ; 
His scourging shall arm thee in might, make thee 
strong in thine hour to endure. 

3 



I. THE CALL OF THE SEA 

** Oh, to be glad with the sea! to rejoice in the thun- 
derous pour, 
In the din, of the swift-falhng waters! to feel the 
cool spray on thy cheek! 
To lie in the hollowed hand of thy liege, with his 
spirit to soar. 
Glad heir of adventurers gone, and comrade of 
those that yet seek! 

" Over the rim of the world make thy uncertain quest ; 
Starlight shall mark thy course, fog and the spin- 
drift bar; 
Thou shalt exult in the storm, in the calm of the sea 
thou shalt rest ; 
Seek danger, and find it not ; seek peace, and miss 
it afar. 

" It will Hft thee on wings as an eagle ; it will be both 
singer and song ; 
A lamp to thy soul in need, a snare to thy wander- 
ing feet ; 
Blind to thy love or hate, it will save thee alone of 
a throng ; 
True to its own untruth, it will make thy ruin 
complete. 



THE CALL OF THE SEA 5 

" All thou hast hoped it gives, all thou hast lost is thine, 
When, with thy face to the gale, thou ridest the 
storm in its wrath. 
Winds in the shrouds are a harp, and the spray on 
thy face is as wine ; 
The roar of the waves is the voice of God, their 
hollows his path. 

" What is thy pettiness then, in the face of this turbu- 
lent strife — 
Sweep of the spendthrift seas, rush of the strenuous 
gale? 
Buffeted, driven, alone, yet thy hand shall guard 
thy Hfe, 
Thy skill shall find thee a path, thy courage shall 
yet avail. 

" Over the swinging sea, under the pendulous stars. 
Rule thy unsteady world, thou the one steady thing ! 
Battling seas and gales, that would be thy prison bars, 
Mold at thy will into bows, thee, their arrow, to 
fling! 

"This is the secret we teach, this is the strength we 
inspire : 
Set thy face to the fore, meet the confident hour ; 



THE CALL OF THE SEA 

Alone, unseen of men, and far from thy heart's desire, 
Take at one plunge this life's best gift, the test of 
thy power!" 

Day and night I have heard it : " Arise and come to 
thine own! 
The spume is like smoke in the blast, and the flaws 
are black on the lee. 
Thou who art thrall to the winds that over the world 
are blown. 
Rejoice in the harping gale, rejoice in the rolling 
sea!" 



HE BRINGETH THEM UNTO THEIR 
DESIRED HAVEN" 

I KNEW a much-loved manner, 
Who Hes a fathom underground ; 

Above him now the grasses stir, 
Two rose-trees set a bound. 

From a high hill his grave looks out 
Through sighing larches to the sea ; 

Now for the ocean's raucous rout 
All June the humblebee 

Drones round him on the lonely steeps, 
And shy wood-creatures come and go 

Above the green mound where he keeps 
His silent watch below. 

An elemental man was he — 

Loved God, his wife, his children dear, 
And fared through dangers of the sea 

Without a sense of fear. 



*'HE BRINGETH THEM UNTO 

And, loving nature, he was wise 

In all the moods of wave and cloud ; 

Before the pageant of the skies 
Nightly his spirit bowed ; 

Yet reckoned shrewdly with the gale, 
And felt the viking's fierce delight 

To face the north wind's icy hail. 
Unmoved to thought of flight. 

But wheresoe'er his prow was turned. 
His thoughts, hke homing pigeons, came 

Back where his casement candle burned 
Through many a league its flame. 

Exiled from all he loved, at last 

The summer gale has brought him home, 
Where on the hillsides thickly massed 

The elders break in foam. 

The lonely highways that he knew 
No longer hold him, nor the gale, 

Sweeping the desolated blue, 
Roars in his slanting sail. 



THEIR DESIRED HAVEN'' 

For he has grown a part of all 
The winter silence of the hills ; 

For him the stately twihghts fall, 
The hemlock softly shrills 

In mimicry of gales that woke 
His vigilance off many a shore 

Whereon the vibrant billows broke. 
Now he awakes no more. 



He wakes no more! Ah, me! his grief 
Was ever that the sea had power 

To hold from him the budding leaf, 
The opening of the flower. 

And so he hungered for the spring — 
The hissing, furrow-turning plow, 

The first thin notes the bluebirds sing. 
The reddening of the bough. 



Wave-deafened, many a night he stood 
Upon his watery deck, and dreamed 

Of thrushes singing in the wood, 

And murmurous brooks that streamed 



lO ■ ''HE BRINGETH THEM UNTO 

Through silver shallows, and of bees 
Lulling the summer afternoon 

With mellow trumpetings of ease, 
Of drowsiness the boon. 



And dreamed of growing old at home, 
The wise Ulysses of his crew 

Of children's children, who would roam 
With him the lands he knew ; 

And, wide-eyed, face with him the gale. 
And hear the slanting billows roar 

Their diapason round his rail- 
All safe beside his door. 



Now he has come into his own, — 

Sunshine and bird-song round the spot. 

And scents from spicy woodlands blown, - 
Yet haply knows it not. 

But round the grave where he doth keep, 

Unsolaced by regret or woe. 
His narrowed heritage in sleep. 

The little children go. 



THEIR DESIRED HAVEN'' n 

They shyly go without a sound, 
And read in reverent awe his name, 

Until for them the very ground 
Doth blossom with his fame. 



THE LAST FIGHT 

That night I think that no one slept; 

No bells were struck, no whistle blew, 
And when the watch was changed I crept 

From man to man of all the crew 
With whispered orders. Though we swept 

Through roaring seas, we hushed the clock, 

And muffled every clanking block. 

So when one fool, unheeding, cried 
Some petty order, straight I ran. 

And threv/ him sprawling o'er the side. 
All life is but a narrow span : 

It little matters that one bide 
A moment longer here, for all 
Fare the same road, whate'er befall. 

But vain my care ; for when the day 
Broke gray and wet, we saw the foe 

But half a stormy league away. 

By noon we saw his black bows throw 

Five fathoms high a wall of spray ; 



THE LAST FIGHT 13 

A little more, we heard the drum, 
And knew that our last hour had come. 



All day our crew had lined the side 

With grim, set faces, muttering ; 
And once a boy (the first that died) 

One of our wild songs tried to sing : 
But when their first shot missed us wide, 

A dozen sprang above our rail. 

Shook fists, and roared a cursing hail. 

Thereon, all hot for war, they bound 

Their heads with cool, wet bands, and drew 
Their belts close, and their keen blades ground ; 

Then, at the next gun's puff of blue, 
We set the grog-cup on its round. 

And pledged for life or pledged for death 

Our last sigh of expiring breath. 

Laughing, our brown young singer fell 

As their next shot crashed through our rail ; 

Then 'twixt us flashed the fire of hell. 
That shattered spar and riddled sail. 

What ill we wrought we could not tell ; 
But blood-red all their scuppers dripped 
When their black hull to starboard dipped. 



14 



THE LAST FIGHT 

Nine times I saw our helmsman fall, 
And nine times sent new men, who took 

The whirling wheel as at death's call ; 
But when I saw the last one look 

From sky to deck, then, reeling, crawl 
Under the shattered rail to die, 
I knew where I should surely lie. 



I could not send more men to stand 
And turn in idleness the wheel 

Until they took death's beckoning hand, 
While others, meeting steel with steel, 

Flamed out their lives— an eager band. 
Cheers on their lips, and in their eyes 
The goal-rapt look of high emprise. 



So to the wheel I went. Like bees 
I heard the shot go darting by ; 

There came a trembling in my knees, 
And black spots whirled about the sky. 

I thought of things beyond the seas — 
The little town where I was born. 
And swallows twittering in the morn. 



THE LAST FIGHT 

A wounded creature drew him where 

I grasped the wheel, and begged to steer. 
It mattered not how he might fare 

The Httle time he had for fear ; 
So if I left this to his care 

He too might serve us yet, he said. 

He died there while I shook my head. 



I would not fall so like a dog, 

My helpless back turned to the foe; 

So when his great hulk, like a log. 
Came surging past our quarter, lo ! 

With helm hard down, straight through the fog 
Of battle smoke, and lufiBng wide, 
I sent our sharp bow through his side. 



The willing waves came rushing in 
The ragged entrance that we gave ; 

Like snakes I heard their green coils spin 
Up, up, around our floating grave ; 

But dauntless still, amid a din 

Of clashing steel and battle shout, 
We rushed to drive their boarders out. 



1 6 THE LAST FIGHT 

Around me in a closing ring 

My grim-faced foemen darkly drew ; 

Then, sweeter than the lark in spring, 

Loud rang our blades ; the red sparks flew. 

Twice, thrice, I felt the sudden sting 

Of some keen stroke ; then, swinging fair. 
My own clave more than empty air. 



The fight went raging past me when 
My good blade cleared a silent place ; 

Then in a ring of fallen men 

I paused to breathe a httle space. 

Elsewhere the deck roared like a glen 
When mountain torrents meet ; the fray 
A moment then seemed far away. 



The barren sea swept to the sky ; 

The empty sky dipped to the sea; 
Such utter waste could scarcely he 

Beyond death's starved periphery. 
Only one hving thing went by : 

Far overhead an ominous bird 

Rode down the gale with wings unstirred. 



THE LAST FIGHT 17 

Windward I saw the billows swing 

Dark crests to beckon others on 
To see our end ; then, hurrying 

To reach us ere we should be gone, 
They came, like tigers mad to fling 

Their jostling bodies on our ships, 

And snarl at us with foaming lips. 



There was no time to spare : a wave 
E'en then broke growling at my feet ; 

One last look to the sky I gave. 
Then sprang my eager foes to meet. 

Loud rang the fray above our grave— 
I felt the vessel downward reel 
As my last thrust met thrusting steel. 



I heard a roaring in my ears ; 

A green wall pressed against my eyes ; 
Down, down I passed ; the vanished years 

I saw in mimicry arise. 
Yet even then I felt no fears, 

And with my last expiring breath 

My past rose up and mocked at death. 
2 



ON GILGO BEACH 

On Gilgo Beach I stand, 

And watch the sun climb up ; 

The carded foam rims all the strand 
Along the sea's full cup. 

Is it a winged flame 

Or but a singing dart, 
The swift, wee sandpiper that came 

Out of the sun's white heart? 

Out of the east came he, 

Into the west has gone, 
Far flashing down the surf, to be 

The herald of the dawn. 

In alternating psalms 

The tumbling breakers sing ; 

Thrilled with their roar, I shun the calms 
Our inland reuions brinij. 



ON GILGO BEACH 19 

Thrall to the sea of old, 

Shoreward I cannot gaze : 
I know the marshes flaunt their gold, 

The dunes in sunlight blaze ; 



And inland hamlets lie 

With slender, tranquil spires ; 

And drifting down the peaceful sky 
The smoke of early fires. 

The long-forgotten years 

Seize me with leopard-spring ; 

I feel the smart of vanished tears, 
And the lost kisses' sting. 

I see return once more 

Sails that no mortal spread. 

And hear along the sounding shore 
The requiem of the dead. 

Deep in these beryl glooms 
They hold their hushed estate ; 

Lords are they all, whose glory blooms 
In tempests desolate. 



20 ON GILGO BEACH 

And one I loved, loved calm, 
And with the fields to dwell : 

Oh, now for him may there be balm 
In ports delectable! 

Lover of wood and lea. 

Fate drove him far to roam, 

"Who should have kept, in place of me, 
The narrow ways of home. 

Brave heart, this flower I fling 
Into your murmurous tomb : 

Still round our hill the thrushes sing, 
The crocuses still bloom. 

But in this barren spot 

I feel the sea's strange art : 

Each billow calls, " Forget me not! " 
The far rim draws my heart. 



THE RETURN 

Now at last I am at home — 
Wind abeam and flooding tide, 

And the offing white with foam, 
And an old friend by my side 
Glad the long, green waves to ride. 

Strange how we 've been wandering 
Through the crowded towns for gain, 

You and I who loved the sting 
Of the salt spray and the rain 
And the gale across the main! 

"What world honors could avail 
Loss of this — the slanted mast, 

And the roaring round the rail, 
And the sheeted spray we cast 
Round us as we seaward passed? 



THE RETURN 

As the sad land sinks apace, 

With it sinks each thought of care ; 

Think not now of aging face ; 
Question not the whitening hair : 
Youth still beckons everywhere. 



And the light we thought had fled 
From the sky-line glows there now ; 

Bends the same blue overhead ; 
And the waves we used to plow 
Part in beryl at the bow. 



Hours like this we two have known 
In the old days, when we sailed 

Seaward ere the night had flown, 
Or the morning star had paled 
Like the shy eyes love has veiled. 



Round our bow the ripples purled, 
As the swift tide outward streamed 

Through a hushed and ghostly world, 
Where our harbor reaches seemed 
Like a river that we dreamed. 



THE RETURN 23 

Then we saw the black hills sway 
In the waters' crinkled glass, 

And the village wan and gray, 
And the startled cattle pass 
Through the tangled meadow-grass. 



Through the glooming we have run 
Straight into the gates of day, 

Seen the crimson-edged sun 

Burn the sea's gray bound away- 
Leap to universal sway. 



Little cared we where we drove 
So the wind was strong and keen. 

Oh, what sun-crowned waves we clove! 
What cool shadows lurked between 
Those long combers pale and green! 



Gray-beard pleasures are but toys ; 

Sorrow shatters them at last : 
For this brief hour we are boys ; 

Trim the sheet and face the blast ; 

Sail into the happy past! 



BECALMED 

The yards are squared, the course is set, 
And port and starboard decks are wet, 
Yet not a flaw from day to day 
Darkens the flood or sifts the spray. 

Becalmed we lie, with rocking keel ; 
The helmsman nods above the wheel, 
Or idly scans the shoreless sea, 
Which sets no whispering murmurs free. 

The still heights of the firmament 
Spread round us like a silver tent, 
And fervid days and silent seas 
Wrap us in balmy dreams of ease. 

No messenger with hurrying feet 
Hails me with tidings of defeat, 
Nor sad-faced herald hastes to tell 
That with my love all is not well. 
24 



BECALMED 



I only know no seas can part 
Us farther than a faithless heart, 
And even Death we might deride 
To part us more, though side by side. 



25 



THE VOYAGER 

Down stormy seas our straining bark 
By whistling gales is onward blown ; 
The tackle shrills, the timbers groan, 

The rack is wild and dark. 

No land we sight, no bark we see, 

The ice makes in the forward shrouds ; 
The blast that curls the scudding clouds 

Is cold as cold can be. 

Sometimes the moon is red as blood, 
Sometimes the air is white with snow ; 
Yet care we not, but on we go 

Across the hissing flood. 

The swift flaws darken on the lee. 
The salt sea-spray is flung behind, 
The canvas bellies in the wind, 

The north wind whistles free. 

a6 



THE VOYAGER 



27 



And sometimes, on still Southern seas, 
We feel the freshening of the gale, 
That leaves behind our path a trail 

Like swarming, silver bees. 

The bell sounds in the quiet night ; 

Through driving clouds the full moon plows ; 

The shadow of our plunging bows 
Doth split the wan moonlight. 

Yet still we sail and sail and sail 

Through many circles of the sun ; 

Sometimes into the dawn we run. 
Sometimes through twilights pale : 

And though the wild wet waste is round, 

We cannot sail forevermore ; 

There is no sea without a shore, 
Some port will yet be found. 



HOMEWARD BOUND 

There is no sorrow anywhere, 

Or care, or pain. The stinging hail 
Beats on our faces hke a flail, 
Green water curls above the rail. 

And all the storm's high trumpets blare,— 
Whistles the wind, and roars the sea, 
And canvas bellows to be free, 

Spars whine, planks creak,— I only smile, 

For home our keel creeps mile on mile. 

I bend above the whirling wheel 

With hands benumbed, but happy face. 
Past us the wild sea-horses race. 
Leap up to seize each twanging brace, 

Or slip beneath our hfting keel. 

Dreaming, I see the scudding clouds. 
And ice make in the forward shrouds. 

And all the long waves topped with foam,- 

Yet heed them not : I 'm going home. 



HOMEWARD BOUND 

Nightly our Northern stars draw nigh, 
The Southern constellations sink. 
Soon we shall see along the brink 
Of these cold seas Fire Island blink 

Its welcome in the frosty sky. 

Beyond that light, beyond the glow 
Of our great city spread below, 

Thine eyes now wait to welcome me 

Back where my heart has longed to be. 



29 



THE SEA-KING 

From out his castle on the sand 
He led his tawny-bearded band 
In stormy bark from land to land. 

The red dawn was his goodly sign ; 
He set his face to sleet and brine, 
And quaffed the blast hke ruddy wine ; 

And often felt the swirling gale 
Beat, like some giant thresher's flail. 
Upon his battered coat of mail ; 

Or sacked at times some windy town. 
And from the pastures, parched and brown, 
He drove the scurrying cattle down ; 

And kissed the maids, and stole the bell 
From off the church below the fell. 
And drowned the priest within the well. 



THE SEA-KING 

And he had seen, on frosty nights, 
Strange, whirling forms and elfin sights, 
In twihght land, by Northern Lights ; 

Or, saihng on by windless shoal. 
Had heard by night the song of troll 
Within some cavern-haunted knoll. 

Off Iceland, too, the sudden rush 

Of waters falling, in a hush 

He heard the ice-fields grind and crush. 

His prow the languid South seas clove ; 
Warm, spiced winds from lemon-grove 
And heated thicket round him drove. 

The storm-blast was his deity ; 
His lover was the fitful sea ; 
The wailing winds his melody. 

By rocky scaur and beachy head 
He followed where his fancy led, 
And down the rainy waters fled ; 

And left the peopled towns behind. 
And gave his days and nights to find 
What lay beyond the western wind. 



31 



THE RETURN OF THE CAPTAIN 

Full forty years as a master of ships, and at sea for a 

dozen more, 
I have fitted my strength to the strength of the gale, I 

have furrowed the deep sea's floor ; 
I have plowed where I could not gather the gain, I 

have harrowed the fruitless deep, 
Till I 'm sick for the smell of the fresh-turned earth and 

the joy of the men who reap ; 
I am sick of the Mother Carey's chicks, and the whine 

of the spars as they strain 
In the heave of the sea through the watch below, and 

the deck in the sleet and the rain. 
Oh, I want to go where the robins call, and the young 

frogs nightly sing. 
And the swinging lines of the wild geese honk as they 

fly to the north in spring. 
And I want to be where the wind is fair, however the 

wind may blow, 

32 



rilE RETURN OF THE CAPTAIN 33 

And the work of a man stops short with the sun and 

each night is a watch below. 
So I 'm going home to the swing of the scythe, and to 

follow the hissing plow, 
And to watch the waves of the wind in the wheat and 

the clashing corn-blades bow. 
Oh, many a night, in the middle watch, when the norther 

whistled shrill, 
I have seen the corn, like men-at-arms, go marching 

over the hill — 
Up the hill and over the hill I have heard their cymbals 

sound, 
Till the roar of the bellowing sails was hushed and the 

sputtering scuppers drowned. 
And I 've heard the horses munch in the stalls, and 

I Ve scented the apple-trees, 
While I drove through the shrieking hurricane or rolled 

on the oily seas. 
In the roaring forties, and off the Horn, and under a 

blistering sky, 
I have heard the feet of the shufBing cows, I have seen 

them marching by. 
One by one I have seen them pass through the lanes 

where I longed to be. 
Home in the valleys I used to know— home from the 

tedious sea. 

3 



34 THE RETURN OF THE CAPTAIN 

But here is the last of my outbound ports, and there is 

the beckoning blue, 
And low in the rigging the trade-wind hums to the 

shanty of the crew. 
The capstan-bars go round and round, with the click of 

the capstan-pawls, 
Till the chain 's hove short at the singing prow and the 

loosened canvas falls. 
With her anchor under her eager foot, and head-sails to 

port, pay off, 
And carry on sail till the royals split and the scuppers 

splutter and cough. 
And the forepeak jars with the thundering shock, as the 

green seas slip aboard, 
And over the foaming, cluttered deck the seething flood 

is poured! 
Ah! little it profits a mortal man that he squanders his 

life at sea ; 
Grows old on a bit of quarterdeck ; a prisoner, thinks 

he is free! 
A galley-slave to the calm and the storm, he shall call 

no hour his own ; 
A lover of men and the greening earth, he shall go to 

his death alone. 
In the still green caves of the swinging sea he shall com 

at last to lie, 



THE RETURN OF THE CAPTAIN 



35 



Bereft of the fields of which he dreamed, bereft of the 

arching sky ; 
And around him there strange shapes shall swim, and 

into his dead eyes leer, 
Who thought to lie on the strong, calm hill, with the 

thrushes singing near. 
He shall give his youth, he shall give his strength, he 

shall give his days of peace ; 
He shall bind his brow with the whirling scud, from the 

storm find no release ; 
He shall learn of the wonders of the deep, and shall tell 

tales strange and wild : 
But he sits as a guest on his own hearthstone and a 

stranger to his child. 
He shall change, grow old, in a changeless world, for 

the sea recks not of time : 
What it was, it is ; what it is, will be ; and it has no 

country or clime. 
It abides, loves not, hates not, makes no pledge ; oft 

conquered, conquers still : 
For it sits on the throne of indifference, and jt molds 

time to its will. 
This is the law that it gives to men : *' Obey, and obey- 
ing, die. 
Ye shall tempt my strength, and fail at last; ye shall 

fail, not knowing why." 



36 THE RETURN OF THE CAPTAIN 

I am tired of it all, and I 'm going home to the land 

that gave me birth, 
To dig and delve, and to water and plant, and rejoice 

in the fruits of the earth ; 
To forget the wind-blown decks of ships, to forget the 

desolate sky, 
With only its pitiless, stalking clouds or a lone bird 

winging by. 
Then wait not, tarry not, but carry on sail, till the bowed 

spars spring and crack. 
And the canvas splits, and the leech-ropes part, and the 

timbers groan and rack! 
For I 'm going home, I am sailing home, from the clutch 

of the hopeless sea ; 
The green hills lie at the end of the world, and the val- 
leys call to me. 



THE CAPTAIN ASHORE 

He came to his home from the tedious seas, 

And abandoned his ship for a plow ; 

He was eager to smell the hay on the mow, 
And to gather the fruit of his trees ; 

And eager to play at Apollos and Paul, — 
To plant and water,— and feel the old joy 
That he used to know when he was a boy : 

He sailed again in the fall. 

And all of the trouble was this : he found 

That nothing was quite as it seemed 

When he stood on his deck at night and dreamed 
Of tilHng the fruitful ground. 

The hawk sailed high in the ambient blue. 
And the pigeons cooed in the sun, 
And over the drowsing fields was spun 

A veil when the green came through. 

37 



38 THE CAPTAIN ASHORE 

He heard the robins sing clear in the dawn, 
And he drank in the breath of the spring, 
But nothing in air or earth could bring 

The touch of the days that were gone. 



Hope, or the wondering mind of the boy. 
Or the glamour of days to be — 
Something had gone in his hfe at sea 

To mock him in all his joy. 

He rose in the night to study the sky, 
And the wind in his face was a balm ; 
But it fretted his soul when the day was calm, 

Or the white fog drifted by. 

He missed the swing of the reeling stars 

And the quick deck under him ; 

He missed the sea's unhampering rim : 
The sheltering hills seemed bars. 

He mounted the heights for a breath of the gale. 
And its resonant voice in the trees 
But echoed the roar of the following seas 

And the bellowing of his sail. 



THE CAPTAIN ASHORE 39 

So long had he fought that he yearned for the strife 
That he missed on the tame, safe land, 
And he longed on the reeling deck to stand 

And battle again for his life. 



Had he grown so old that he needs must stay- 
Like a wrinkled crone by the fire? 
All the years of his life, all the strength of desire, 

Kept calling: "Away! away! 

" The strength of the sea has strengthened thy hand, 
The heart of the sea is thy heart ; 
Go back to thine own, to the end play thy part, 
Unmoved by the thought of the land. 

" Oh, fair are the fields of the glittering foam, 
And dear is the voice of the gale ; 
Thy home is under the whitening sail ; 
Go back to thy home— thy home! 

" The strength of the sea has strengthened thy hand. 
The heart of the sea is thy heart : 
It has bound thee in chains, it has set thee apart. 
An alien to be to the land." 



THE OLD MAN 
(told by the steward) 

Turn out, you goggle-eyed lubber! Rouse out of 
your beauty-sleep! 

For the pin-rail is mighty contiguous when a sailor- 
man plays at Bo-Peep. 

Rouse out! Rouse out! Where are you? Where 
you 're likely to be for a time, 

Unless you die with your boots on, and ship for a 
warmer clime. 

For the old ship she 's a-rolling, and the land has 
fallen alee, 

And a gale in the rigging is calling, " Farewell, O 
my love, to thee! " 

The decks are sloppy and cheerless, and the hawse- 
pipes guzzle and cough, 

And a neat little job on the royals is waiting for you 

up alof. 

40 



THE OLD MAJSr 



41 



So clear your decks of their dunnage, and look to 

your steering-gear, 
For the mate is a roaring lion, and probably headed 

here. 
He 's a squint-eyed son of a sea-cook, with his fists 

uncommonly spry 
In the dark of the moon, or in daylight, when the 

old man is n't nigh. 
But the old man he 's a daisy, and as mild as a hen 

in the sun ; 
He 's Moses and Job and a turtle-dove all rolled into 

one. 
But he 's game to the core, is the old man, and he 

does n't take aught on trust ; 
But he keeps the lead-hne a-going, and the log is n't 

left to rust. 
He 's never seen forward the mizzen, but he knows 

when a foot-rope is worn, 
Or a bit of the rigging is chafed, or a cloth of a head- 
sail is torn. 
He knows a man from a soger, till the soger knows 

it, too. 
And he tries in his shame and pride to do what a 

man would do. 
Just watch when he comes on deck : it 's always the 

same, day or night. 



42 



THE OLD MAN 

First he looks to the shivering luff, then the binnacle 

claims a sight ; 
Tlien he looks up to windward a moment, and slowly 

his half-shut eye 
Sweeps down to the leeward and back again, till the 

sea and the sky 
And the feel of the wind on his face have told every 

secret they hold. 
Now that 's the old man. Last year, — it was June, 

I remember, and cold, — 
We lay off the Horn in a Cwilm, scuppers spouting at 

every roll, 
As we dipped to starboard or port, till each of us felt 

in his soul 
Fit for murder or sudden death, as a man will feel 

when the spars 
Whine, whine, and the canvas slats, and the sun or the 

stars 
Sasshay overhead in a dance that has neither begin- 
ning nor end, 
And a man would hail with joy whatever the gods 

might send. 
So we rolled in the drift off the cape, with that black 

coast under our lee. 
While the first mate waited and watched. It was dusk 

when we saw loom at sea 



THE OLD MAN 



43 



The grim white arch of the Horn sweeping down hke 

the wrath of God. 
'T was the rack of the oncoming gale, and it leveled 

the waters it trod, 
And it twanged on a thousand harps, and roared like 

a battle afar. 
Just a moment I stood there and listened : heard a 

furled sail flap loose on its spar, 
And the water drip back from the chains as we rolled, 

so deep was the hush ; 
Then a puff of wind hummed through the shrouds, 

and the gale came down with a rush. 
We heeled with the blow till I stood with my body 

awash to the knee. 
And I saw three forms whirl by in the ruck of a 

breaking sea ; 
Then I heard the foretopsail boom, saw the slivered 

canvas fly 
Like the huge white wings of a bird down the waste 

of the wild, black sky. 
The old bark righted at last when the puff had ex- 
pended its force. 
And out of the wallowing hollows we brought her 

again on her course ; 
But she sagged to the leeward a bit, and she balked 

at each tumbling crest. 



44 THE OLD MAN 

And she nosed about like a blind old cow, though we 

steered our best. 
Yet she yawed over half of the compass, for three of 

us stood at the wheel. 
And we steered by the touch of the shoulder, and kept 

our course by the feel ; 
For our voices and sight were lost in the driving sleet 

and the din ; 
It was black as a nigger's pocket, and as cold as the 

heart of sin. 
The first mate fretted and fumed till he saw the old 

man had appeared, 
When he dropped his burden of care, and his face im- 
mediately cleared ; 
But the old man showed the master, as he stood there 

calm and grim. 
For he knew that no one but God could lift the burden 

from him. 
He looked at the straining canvas, and he looked at 

each bending spar, 
And he peered through the murk to leeward for the 

loom of the threatening scaur ; 
And he kept the lead-line going, and he noted each 

lessening mark 
Through the long, hard morning watch, till the dawn 

broke gray through the dark. 



THE OLD MAN 45 

Gray! the whole world was gray — the land and the 

sky and the ship, 
And under the quarters, like wolves, we saw the gray 

seas slip. 
Behind us the breakers broke, and under our leeward 

bow 
We saw through the rocks of the coast the mile-long 

rollers plow. 
Not a moment the old man lost, but he ordered the 

sheets all home, 
And he cracked on sail, and he held her, till the decks 

were a smother of foam. 
Our hearts stood still in our breasts, and our throats 

were dry with fear, 
Though we saw we were clawing to windward and the 

rocks of the Horn dropped clear. 
Well! we started our sheets again in the swirl of an- 
other gale, 
And the sting of a thousand bees was the sting of the 

driving hail. 
And the strength of a thousand seas was the strength 

that hurtled us on 
Through a dusk too black for day, and for night too 

gray and wan. 
Oh, the harp of the rigging sang, and the dour gale 

whistled shrill, 



46 THE OLD MAN 

As we dropped to the lonely valley and leaped to the 

watery hill ; 
Till the king of the graybacks caught us as we sHpped 

in a watery swale, 
And flooded the vessel fore and aft, and splittered the 

rail. 
And it carried the old man outboard for a hundred 

feet or more. 
Then lifted him up and dropped him at the break of 

my galley door. 
He picked himself up right coolly, and he turned and 

shouted to me: 
" Steward, you lazy loafer, must I come for my pot 

of cold tea? " 



THE SECOND MATE 

I KNEW " Brute " Barnes as second mate 
Upon the old bark Morning Star, 

A down-East hooker that of late, 
Holding the starboard tack too far, 
When all to pieces on a bar 

Off Barnegat, lost crew and freight, 

The latter of some value. I 

Made one trip in her, left the sea, 

Content upon the land to die. 
I never knew a man more free 
With handspike and his fists than he. 

Strike, then find out the reason why-— 

That was with him the jovial way. 
Hard and unfeeling when aboard. 

On shore he gave his nature play. 

His mind with many a jest was stored, 
And from his unexhausted hoard 

He kept his hearers blithe and gay. 

47 



48 THE SECOND MATE 

He was no bookman's pirate ; one 

Would not have marked him in a crowd. 

Sh'ght, agile, and with eyes that fun 
, Made gay until wrath made them proud, 
When something yellow seemed to cloud 

The gray, that tears would overrun. 

That is the way with fickle men, 

The kind girls like, as they liked him.- 

I knew his reputation when 

I shipped. Scarce was the shore-line dim 
Before he proved it by a whim 

And felled a Dutchman we called Ben 

Because he squinted. That same night- 
Wind fair, a steady eight-knot breeze, 

Moon full, and not a cloud in sight — 
Some of our watch lay at their ease 
Up forward, gazing at the seas 

Break leeward in a misty light. 

And climb and fall against the sky. 
One man had fallen in a doze. 

When Barnes came softly stepping by. 
And clapped pipe to the fellow's nose-— 
He said to hghten his repose. 

What did the fellow do then? Why, 



THE SECOND MATE ^g 

Just grin and bear it ; that is all 
A sailorman can ever do. 

He bore the scar until his fall, 

Months later, when, in reeving through 
Its block a line, the ship broached to, 

Barnes at the wheel. I saw him sprawl 

A rod away through that sick air. 

Then disappear. Barnes turned no look 

To leeward, but began to swear, 

While all our deck roared like a brook, 
And our old hooker groaned and shook 

As green seas swept her everywhere. 

I think Barnes, having wronged the man, 
Felt bitter toward him, thought him slow, 

And in quick wrath flashed on that plan 
To shake him up a bit ; I know 
He whitened when the man let go. 

So all our log for that trip ran — 

Blows, kicks, and curses. None went free. 

And Barnes was ever quick to find 
Work in the middle watch, or see 

Fault where there was none. Once, half blind 

With battling in a sleety wind, 
We stayed below when called, till he 



so 



THE SECOND MATE 

Flashed down among us glowering there. 
" Who is the last man up? " he cried ; 

And we, like whipped curs, blocked the stair, 
Not to be last. Barnes stood aside. 
But that same watch the last man died. 

But one wild night we saw a flare 

To leeward, and stood by till day ; 
When, level with the sea, we saw 

A Dago brig awash with spray. 

There while we watched her roll and yaw 
Black on the sea raced flaw on flaw. 

Then Barnes cried : " Clear a boat away! 

Some one is in the rigging. Now, 

Who goes with me? " Then out stepped four. 
We launched the boat ; we sent her prow 

All whitening through that awful roar ; 

The poor lost creatures back we bore : 
But nearing our own bark, saw how 

A cold scud whitened round her till 
She faded slowly on the sight. 

We heard her rigging loudly shrill ; 

And saw the " old man," grim and white. 
Stand beckoning, hastening on our flight. 

They ran our boat up with a will ; 



THE SECOND MATE 

But as Barnes stepped across the rail, 
A brace, by some poor fool set free. 

Snapped round him like God's awful flail, 
And swept him broken in the sea. 
Then while we stood like dazed sheep, he 

Rose, smiled, and roared a hearty hail : 

*'So long, boys!" and then turned away. 
In that thick gale he feared no boat 
Could live, and so he bade us stay 
And try to keep the bark afloat. 
Brute, yes, but something else, I vote. 
As most men are. What would you say? 



51 



RAINY TWILIGHT 

Oh, put thy hand in mine, and we '11 take the road 
together : 
With gold the west is dappled above the rainy hill : 
Yet raindrops hiss upon the twigs in token of foul wea- 
ther; 
The twilight is deserted ; these haunted ways are still. 

But who with love and youth would hesitate to follow 
This little cart-track running through sumacs to the 
sea? 
Sweet is the veil the rain has made for love in every 
hollow ; 
The gay winds kiss to beauty thy happy face for me. 

Each wheel-rut is a pool to glass the leafless thickets ; 

The dry reeds clash like cymbals, or sway like men 
at war ; 
Into the dusk a rabbit darts ; in antiphons the crickets 

Weave happy songs to shatter the silence they abhor. 



RAINY TWILIGHT 



^Z 



Wide, inaccessible, there lies the solemn level 

Of darkened meadows stretching unto the ocean's rim. 
Seamed with the winding waterways wherein shy crea- 
tures revel, 
The meadow-hens brood near, the slow tide-waters 
brim. 

The spray from off the sea blows salt across our faces ; 
Thy brow the cool rains kiss; thine eyes with love- 
light shine. 
What bits of happy song we sing ! What laughter haunts 
these places, 
Thrilled with the far surf's thunder, damp with its 
sweeping brine! 

The strong gales buffet us; the rain hosts fight with 
lances — 

With leveled lances set, against us ride in vain : 
Far and forgotten now is grief ; no care with us advances ; 

Our gay gods haunt ahke the sunshine and the rain. 



THE FLOWER OF LOVE 

Had she loved me, been true to me ever, 
No task had then lacked the endeavor 

I had made for her sake, and, crowned king, 
Entered into her heart, found it sweet 

To surrender all Fate gave to bring. 
Just the lack of that touch meant defeat 
Where men thought my victory complete. 

Had she given my heart but one token, 
One sign, of her love, — a word spoken, 

Or the quick, deep heave of her breast, 
Or a change in her brow's cool white. 

Where lily turned rose, — I had pressed 
To the fore in my last, doubtful fight. 
Like a conqueror still, come what might. 

Had she needed my care, it were given ; 
My strength, with the world I had striven, 

54 



THE FLOWER OF LOVE ^^ 

Given service and love — given all, 
Fared with joy the hard road that she trod. 

Once I gave, then I gave past recall. 
Love springs like a flower from the sod ; 
That withered, the soul 's but a clod. 



THOU AND I 

It was the heart of the wood : 

Odors of hemlock and fir 
Came to me where I stood ; 

The song of the shy chorister, 
The wood-thrush, rang Hke a bell 

Far in a thicket unseen ; 
At my feet one ray of light fell 

From a break in the covert of green 
Where laughed a patch of blue sky. 

So still was it, one might have heard, 
When the thrush has silenced his cry, 

The wind on the throat of a bird 
As it ruffled his feathers, or blew 

From the sorrel one petal, or shook 
From the star-grass its one drop of dew. 

Soundless the slow, black brook 
Under the great pines streamed ; 

Soundless the pines bent down. 
Dear, it was then that I dreamed 

But of you in the heart of the town. 
s6 



THOU AND I 57 

Heart of my heart, I would come 

Out of this world to thee. 
The wood and the wild bee's hum 

Have hidden their beauty from me. 
Gone is the bloom on the brier ; 

Vanished the song of the thrush : 
Only thy smile I desire, 

Only the flower of thy blush. 
Here are the stones we crossed 

Over the slow, shallow stream ; 
Not a spike of the moss is lost, 

Not a glint in the black pool's gleam : 
Yet now that I walk here alone, 

I see but a wood-choked shore, 
Dull stream with its bridge of stone 

In a marish waste — no more. 
But far in the garish town 

Blooms Love's shy garden spot : 
There the heart's-ease lifts its crown ; 

There springs the forget-me-not. 



THE LOST KINGDOM 

My kingdom lay upon a hill 
Wide open to the Northern sea, 
And thither came right merrily 

The joyous ones who miss me still. 

I claimed the shade of four great trees, 
A stretch of moss, a bit of clover, 
A blue patch where the sky arched over. 

And all the outlook of the seas. 

And thither from the dusty town 
I daily passed, and blotted out 
The sordid world. A merry rout 

Went through rny kingdom, up and down. 

There butterflies on asters rode. 
And spiders spun about the place, 
And squirrels, scolding to my face, 

Claimed all my realm as their abode. 



THE LOST KINGDOM 59 

Ah me! What splendor shut me in — 
Scent of the rose, and brier-blooms 
From out the trackless thicket glooms, 

And in the air a doubtful din 



Of whistle, pipe, and caroling. 
And one low, lulHng monotone, 
Half chant or paean, and half moan. 

Where salt sea waves came wandering! 

The queen? I know not where she strayed ; 
I only know that she was fair. 
With hints of sunlight in her hair, 

And eyes half mocking, half afraid. 

And many a time I saw the sheen 
Of her bright gown go flashing by 
Some woodland glade that opened nigh ; 

And then the thicket grew a screen. 

But wheresoe'er she passed, the day 

Grew still and white, and each dark path 
Shone in a twilight aftermath, 

As if God smiled upon the way. 



6o THE LOST KINGDOM 

Too rare her visits grew, and I 
Made rarer journeys to my own ; 
For now my kingdom seemed alone 

Where her uncertain steps drew nigh. 



THE HEART OF TRUTH 

Dear, my love I do not hold 

Just a thing to barter for : 
Say I love you if you love ; 

Scorn you if you should abhor. 

Rather, I would give you all — 
All, though asking naught in fee, 

Like the grape unto its wine, 
Like the raindrop to the sea. 

Love for me high service is, 

Just to make your life complete : 

Do you need a knight? I go. 
Victim? I fall at your feet. 

Naught is trifling that you ask ; 

Naught so great I would not strive. 
Would my dying serve you, dear, 

It were shame to be alive. 

6i 



62 THE HEART OF TRUTH 

This is all that I could wish : 

Say, " This day she spoke a word 

Kindly to me as I passed " ; 

Or, '' She looked up when I stirred. 

But I ask not that. I ask 
Only that my love may run 

On and on unchecked by you, 
Like a shadow 'neath the sun. 



Is it folly? I 'm content 

Once for all, dear, to be true, 

Though my doubtful card-world spins, 
I the needle, pole-star you. 

Why should you, then, grieve if I, 
Tired of feigning, drop my mask 

Just this once? Is truth less truth 
If unspoken, may I ask? 

Had I kept to silence, I 

Should have known your step the same. 
Listened for it on the stair. 

Trembled when I heard your name. 



THE HEART OF TRUTH e^ 

All your little tricks of speech, 

Ways of moving — all I knew ; 
I first saw you in the spring, 

So spring seemed a part ofjyou. 



Day for me began when I 

Saw your face across the room ; 

If you then but turned and smiled, 
Even winter seemed to bloom. 

Wall on wall divided us. 

What if I unlocked the door, 
For an instant showed my face 

To your startled eyes— no more? 

God has set you high, in truth. 

Can my love make you less high? 
Does the glassing, small pool vex 

The blue radiance of the sky? 

Nothing now is changed. My days 

In the old way come and go, 
Warped by neither joy nor grief. 

Naught is changed, dear— but you know. 



DEAR HEART, WHERE HAST THOU 
WANDERED?" 

Dear heart, where hast thou wandered? 

What happier regions stay 
Thy Hngering feet, whose coming changed 

My winter into May? 

Now all our slopes are burgeoned 

In summer's lavish mood, 
And deep within the grove the thrush 

Has belled the solitude. 

The laurels set the hillside 

With many a spectral light ; 
Seen through the dusk, they stand like nymphs. 

Expectantly in flight. 

But somewhere thou dost linger. 

Implacable, afar. 
Though high within the twilight sky 

Gleams cold our trysting-star. 
64 



<* WHERE HAST THOU WANDERED?'' 65 

The brooks we loved still murmur, 
Though now through dells of gloom ; 

The very hills have lost with thee 
Their moiety of bloom. 

Still, each leaf whispers of thee ; 

In every path once trod 
By thy dear feet, thy spirit yet 

Speaks from remembering sod. 



CONCERNING ONE 

Had she any dower 

Whe7i she ca?ne ? 
Yes ; her face was like a flower, 

And her soul was free from blame. 

On her cheeks a rose-leaf flame 
Ever fluttered. When she spoke, 
Then for me the morning broke. 

Wore she any crown 
When she died? 

All the earth seemed sodden brown, 

Though 't was June ; and children cried. 
And placed flowers at her side ; 

And the paths that once she trod 

Seemed the highways unto God. 



66 



HIS QUEST 

What seek'st thou at this madman's pace? 
' I seek my love's new dwelhng-place ; 
Her house is dark, her doors are wide, 
There bat and owl and beetle bide, 
And there, breast-high, the rank weeds grow. 
And drowsy poppies nod and blow. 
So mount I swift to ride me through 
The world to find my love anew. 
I have no token of the way ; 
I haste by night, I press by day. 
Through busy cities I am borne. 
On lonely heights I watch the morn 
Whiten the east, and see the hght 
Of waning moon gleam thwart my flight. 
Sometimes a hght before me flees ; 
I foflow it, till stormy seas 
Break wide before, then all is dark. 
Sometimes on plains, wide, still, and stark, 
67 



68 HIS QUEST 

I hear a voice ; I seek the sound, 

And ride into a hush profound. 

To find her dwelHng I will ride 

Worlds through and through, whate'er betide.' 

To find her dwelling rode he forth, 
In vain rode south, in vain rode north ; 
In vain in mountain, plain, and mart 
He searched, but never searched his heart. 



APRIL 

Oh, strangely fall the April days! 

The brown buds redden in their light, 
And spiders spin by day and night; 
The willow lifts a yellow haze 
Of springing leaves to meet the sun, 
While down their white-stone courses run 
The swift, glad brooks, and sunshine weaves 
A cloth of green for cowslip leaves 
Through all the fields of April days. 

Oh, sweetly fall the April days! 

My love was made of frost and light, 
Of light to warm and frost to blight 

The sweet, strange April of her ways. 

Eyes like a dream of changing skies, 

And every frown and blush I prize. 

With cloud and flush the spring comes in, 
With frown and blush maids' loves begin ; 

For love is like rare April days. 
69 



SONG 



There 's a garden by a river, 
Where the grasses bend and quiver 
On the river's reedy edges. 
Roses crimson all the hedges, 
And a leafy lane runs down 
Through the meadows to a town. 

In a winding way. 
But where lies that garden blowing, 
Where that river, stilly flowing, 
And the lawn through meadows going, 

I shall never say. 

II 

Something fairer than a rose 
In that unknown garden grows. 
Something sweeter than the rhyme 
Sung by birds in lilac-time ; 
70 



SOJVG 

Fairer than a dream of youth, 
Thought all lost to care and ruth. 

Something with a heart like May ; 
Rose and lily all in one ; 
Golden hair caught from the sun ; 
Eyes with laughter overrun. 

What? I '11 never say. 

HI 

Dreamy face and rosebud mouth, 
Breath like spring winds from the south, 
Eyes disclosing more than lies 
Hedged beneath the bended skies 

Of a day in May. 
So, when days grow longer, sweeter. 
Grow the rare June hours completer ; 
And the winter's time for snowing 
Leaves the June winds chance for blowing, 
I will seek this garden, growing 

Where I '11 never say. 



71 



SLEEP 

In a tangled, scented hollow, 
On a bed of crimson roses. 
Stilly now the wind reposes ; 

Hardly can the breezes borrow 

Breath to stir the night-swept river. 
Motionless the water-sedges, 
And within the dusky hedges 

Sounds no leaf's impatient shiver. 

Sleep has come, that rare rest-giver. 

Light and song have flown away 

With the sun and twilight swallow ; 

Scarcely will the unknown morrow 
Bring again so sweet a day. 
Song was born of Joy and Thought ; 

Light, of Love and her Caress. 

Nothing 's left me but a tress ; 
Death and Sleep the rest have wrought- 
Death and Sleep, who came unsought. 
72 



LOVE ONCE MADE HIS HOME WITH 
ME " 

Love once made his home with me, 

Broke my bread, and drank my wine, 
On the coasts of Arcady. 

How we praised the purple sea. 

Cool shade, and the strong sunshine! 
Love once made his home with me. 

Joy we thought to hold in fee, 

Slave at Love's eternal shrine, 
On the coasts of Arcady. 

Death alone, we said, could free 

Hearts that Love's dear chains entwine. 
Love once made his home with me. 



74 



LOVE ONCE MADE HIS HOME WITH ME 

Leveled let my dwelling be ; 

Love has gone and left no sign 
On the coasts of Arcady. 

All my future lost with thee, 

This I keep : the past is mine. 
Love once made his home with me 
On the coasts of Arcady. 



AN IDEALIST 

Once more he roams the hills he used to know, 

And threads the woodland paths wherein he strayed. 
Above the trees familiar skies bend low, 
And laurel thickets still shut in the glade, 
And make a secret shade 
The vireos love to voice their sorrow in. 

The blue jays jeer him as they see him pass, 
Warning the woodland of him ; in the grass 
The hidden crickets make a doubtful din ; 

And shy things range where once their fellows 

ranged — 
All now is as it used to be, but he is changed. 

How changed is he from him who gaily took 

These windy uplands with his open joy 
In all the pageant of the year, and shook 

The world's greed from him like an empty toy 

That rang to base alloy ! 

75 



76 AN IDEALIST 

For him the pine-trees echoed his content ; 
The thrushes voiced his own heart's ecstasy, 
Thrice glad with him because they too were free. 
Beauty to him was hfe's one argument ; 

He strove to fit his nature to that law, 

Glad for the perfect rose, the day without a flaw. 

Oh, many a dawn once found him on some height 
That overlooked the hushed and darkened plain, 
To catch the first coming of the light, 

"With all the pomp of morning in its train! 
He faced the sheeted rain 
On many a sodden road ; he dared the sea, 
Wind-swept and raucous, with his slanting sail. 
Knowing the light that led him would not fail : 
For, lo! the embattling seas curved royally. 
Loud rolled the diapason of the wave ; 
Each raindrop, stored with light, a mimic small 
world gave. 

He knew the haunt of every beast and bird ; 

The secrets of the seasons were his own : 
Where hid the first wild flowers, and when stirred 

The sap in spring, and when in antiphon 

The katydids intone 



AN IDEALIST 



77 



Their vibrant chant for all the garnered years. 
Nature he knew, but life he did not know ; 
Gaily he fared, untouched by love or woe. 
He loved the singer's art, but not the seer's, 

And sought through many a realm unknown to kings 
The bloom that vaguely lies on far, desired things. 

He dreamed of things that vanished long ago : 

Old heroes dead on many a dented shield ; 
The wine-dark sea, the Argo sailing slow 

Past the dim Thracian coast, the dragon-field. 
He rode where brave knights reeled. 
In tournaments, before the leveled lance ; 
He sailed with early mariners, and saw 
Strange seas stretch wide before, and felt their awe. 
Dreaming, he walked the fields of old Romance, 
And all the past, of which he seemed a part. 
Quickened with life again, and bloomed within his 
heart. 



It blooms no more. To-day now walks with him. 
And little children's love, and old men's prayers. 

And hopes grown hopeless,— but with courage grim,- 
And griefs that steal upon him unawares. 
His thoughts are falling stairs 



yS AN IDEALIST 

That leave his heaven of noble tasks unwon ; 
So, nigh to earth, he sets small clod on clod, 
And builds not high, yet reaches up to God. 
"What he has done, spurs him ; what left undone, 
He holds, in his own fashion, just the goal 
God sets to try the courage on, to test the soul. 

He seeks it still, though he will never win 
Unto the place where God has set the mark. 

Yet dauntless still, like those who just begin 
On holy quests, he struggles in the dark 
Through regions lone and stark. 

Humbled, he still is high ; baffled, does not despair ; 
The light that led him thus far leads him still : 
Beauty still clothes the sea, and crowns the hill, 

And molds men's deeds to something rich and rare. 
He looks beyond cold circumstance's bars. 
Lord of his chastened soul and brother to the stars. 



A SONG FOR THE HOPELESS 

Has thy heart one vain wish ? Then repress it, and keep 
The hard road of thy duty, as the arrow its flight. 
As the bird wings its trackless, lone way through the 
night, 

For a nest in the reeds where the slow waters creep 
From the uplands down to some warm river's mouth, 
So keep thou thy course till thou reachest thy South. 

Thy South or thy North— httle matters the end; 

The crown 's in the doing. If I risk mine own soul 

That sooner or later I reach a low goal, 
It is only my soul's low worth that I spend ; 

But the struggle, the steadfastness— there lies my gain ; 

Gives my soul in the end strength meet to its pain. 

Grow strong by repression, not use. See the sun, 
How it scorches the plains, and the rivers makes dry ; 
So the grieved heart is seared by its passion ; a sigh 

Only mars, warps the soul, and the mischief is done. 
When a man stands alone, with his heart under heel, 
He 's a man, knows at last how the strong gods feel. 

79 



8o --^ SOXG FOR THE HOPELESS 

Then rejoice in thy courage to worst thy desire, 
Break free from the fetters that shackle thy heart! 
He who feels the keen pain, and yet laughs at the smart, 

Who burns in the flame, while disdaining the fire. 
He is victor, not victim ; has fathomed God's use 
Of the soul of a man, not Fortune's abuse. 

For what is thy life but a struggle to stand, 

Like a man, firm, erect, with a smile on thy face? 

The lily may spring from a noisome place. 
And the wild rose blow on a barren strand. 

Be it rose, then, or soul, oh, abide the last hour! 

God waits through the growing to judge of the flower. 



MY CAPTAIN 

Yesterday, with shout of glee, 
My boy sailed away to sea. 
His stout ship was but a chair ; 
Sea (the grass) was everywhere ; 
And his sails two apple-trees 
Loudly roaring in the breeze ; 
Tide at flood, and wind offshore, 
Sailed, to sail forevermore. 
With his bright hair blown about, 
He had only time to shout 
Some brief parting, wave his hand, 
Then set sail for fairy-land. 
I have been so far astray 
I have quite forgot the way ; 
But for him it lies before 
The known portals of my door, 
Far this side of candle-light. 
And the dragons of the night, 



82 MV CAPTAIN 

And this strange new world's alarms, 
Near the shelter of my arms. 
In the boughs of blowing trees 
He sees strange, far mysteries ; 
Lofty cloud and shadow are 
Magic isle or fairy-car ; 
And the white road from my gate 
Runs, he knows, where lions wait, 
Hiding in the tangled grass 
For his fearful feet to pass. 
So five yards from him I stay 
Half a million miles away, 
Happy still, but thinking, though. 
Deeper thoughts than he can know — 
Thinking he will sail again. 
Some day, for the world of men. 
With the same glad, careless grace 
Shining on his eager face, — 
Coming not, despite of harms, 
To the lost port of my arms. 



MARCH 

There is no sun, and yet no threat of rain ; 

No radiance, yet all the dark boles shine ; 

No wind, though all the air is like a wine 
As I go up the road in my love's train. 
Between her love-looks and her laugh I gain 

Glimpses of barren fields, scents of the pine, 

And sounds like bells of silver far and fine — 
It is the bluebird singing in the lane. 

Breathless we pause. Again the ringing chime, 
Now farther, finer, fills the silences. 

Gone are the bare woods and the hints of rime 
Along the north hedge-rows : we dream of ease 

In sunny orchards coming into bloom. 

And walk a moment in their radiant gloom. 



83 



WHEN THE LAST HOUR SHALL COME" 

When the last hour shall come, and I go, 
May the spring be at full, life at flood — 

And a laugh on the lips, and a glow 

On the cheek from the heart's ruddy blood! 

No pausing for me then to weigh 

The merits of deeds, count the cost 
Of each act ; pleading, say : 
" Here I won, there in weakness I lost. 

" But the strength, O my Judge, that was mine ; 
There I stood at my full height of soul : 
What was weak was the dregs of the wine, 
Just the sediment left in the bowl." 

Bah! I knew the full price of each sin ; 

Knew how hard was the road that I trod : 
Shall I prove myself weak, just to win? 

A hypocrite, quibble with God? 
84 



WHEN THE LAST HOUR SHALL COME'' 85 

What were heaven to me, may I ask, 
If I cringe at the gate for my gain? 

Then were heaven but a place for a mask. 
Where the mummers make merry in vain. 

What I am, tried to be. He must know ; 

Where I failed, no last hour can requite. 
In the pride of my strength may I go, 

Like a man, with my face to the fight! 



THE ROAD WE CAME 

READ AT THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
THE CLASS OF 1 87 7, YALE UNIVERSITY 

I 

Once more the urban groves have called us home. 

The cool shade and the academic wails 

Echo the tread that now no longer falls 
Blithe as in days when we were wont to roam 
Beneath the elms' green dome. 

Little there is that we can now call ours, 
Whose world is but a shadow on the grass, 

Where we as aliens walk by alien towers, 
And, strangers, watch the strange young faces pass. 

The garrulous Present brings but memories here ; 

The Future veils her face ; only the Past is clear. 

86 



THE ROAD WE CAME 87 

II 

The Past is clear. Across our brooding eyes 

Bright fares the goodly company we knew 

Before the laurel or the saddening rue 
Had crowned each dark defeat or high emprise. 
In dreams our old world lies 

Wide, unhorizoned to the eager gaze 
That longed to build a bridge unto some star 

That shone upon the future's unvexed ways. 
No star was there whose distance was a bar 

To that high spirit of the growing man 

Who, seeing, longed to gain, and longing, cried, " I can. " 

III 

We held in truth the happy heritage 

Of plainer living ; saw the new Yale rise, 
And statelier groups of elms fret the blue skies. 

AVe were the demos of that simpler age 

And read life's golden page 

Together where the two streets met the town. 

From that lost coign grew our unwritten law 
That simple manhood is man's highest crown. 

There honor, rooted in endeavor, saw 

No pent-up truth warring with things untrue : 
The strong hand won by strength ; the weak received 
its due. 



88 THE ROAD WE CAME 

IV 

How fast the deeds of old now reappear! 

Again we strive upon the eager field, 

And know the old heart-sickness when we yield, 
The wild, uplifting, glad joy when we hear 
The victory's crowning cheer. 

Once more the parched throat and the heaving breast, 
The maddening, gladdening struggle for the goal, 

The mental sinking that comes with our rest. 
After the bloom is gone, assail the soul. 

Oh, short the road into the purple past 

Where we were crowned with youth! Would that our 
youth might last ! 

v 

We hear the boatmen on the still, black stream 
As we row home at dusk, and hear them call 
From deck to shore, and then the clanking fall 

Of their home-coming anchors ; hear the scream 

Of night-hawks, catch the gleam 

Of phosphorescence as we slowly row 

Past river-banks the dusk makes strangely fair. 
High o'er the city shines the twilight glow. 

And on the harbor trails its golden hair. 

The river flows here yet ; still broods the shore ; 
But others track them now, where we shall go no more. 



THE ROAD WE CAME 89 

VI 

Deep in the cloistered refuge of the mind 
Some kept the scholar's vigil. Never star 
Blazed in its orbit but was seen afar 

By some lone watcher strenuous to bind 

Its uses to mankind ; 

No new truth flashed upon the waiting world 

But some strong thinker in sad loneliness 

Fired the slow train with which the bolt was hurled. 

Still to their goal our own rare scholars press, 
And high upon the watch-towers of the soul 
Guard the eternal truths and keep their sacred scroll. 

VII 

But some there were who dwelt in Arcady, 
And took in secret the unplauded ways, 
Shunning the contests and the fevered days, 

Glad only with the spirit to be free. 

For them the windy lea, 

The cool woods, and the twilights hushed and brown, 

The hfted steeps that held the last of day. 
The far lights glimmering in the college town, 

Beckoning them home along the darkened way! 
How leaped the frosty road to meet their feet! 
What talks and silences made all their journeys sweet! 



90 



THE ROAD WE CAME 



VIII 



For them fair Greece and sunlit Italy 

Rose bright above our dark New England soil. 
They saw great consuls leading home their spoil, 

And spoke Odysseus on the wine-dark sea. 

They saw the maenads flee, 

The fauns pursue athwart the beechen lawn, 

And old Silenus lolling in the shade, 

Trying some oaten note ; and here at dawn 

The wide-eyed Daphne came all unafraid — 
Came all alone, and crooning some weird air. 
Knelt at the shaded pool and combed her dusky hair. 

IX 

Their walks are Httle changed : Fair Haven yet 

Over its river leans ; to Derby still 

The road winds up by many a wooded hill ; 
Eastward slow creeks the wide salt-marshes fret ; 
And fogs hang gray and wet 

In winter over Branford and its shore. 
And often have they tacked in flaw and calm 

Beyond the Thimbles, heard the raucous pour 
Of tumbling, sunlit seas, and felt the balm 

Of windless twilights melting into flame. 

The salt seas lure them still ; the wet ways are the same. 



THE ROAD WE CAME 



We have been fortunate : so many years, 

So many lives, yet few have failed the call. 

But some heard not, and in their place the fall 
Of Sorrow's footstep breaks upon our ears, 
Starting unbidden tears. 

Dear lost ones, who with us were wont to roam 
Under the elms when life was in its spring. 

We send this word : Our hearts are still your home 
Your voices sound beside us when we sing ; 

Still where we planted it the ivy blooms ; 

With leaves of memory we deck your far-off tombs. 

XI 

Green in the white, still heat of later June 

The college sits in all her gracious pride. 

And lovingly her portal opens wide 
To us, her sons, who here, to age immune, 
In gladness scorn to prune 
The wings they mimic now, but in youth wore. 

Back run the lustra five ; we see again 
The boyish faces that we knew of yore, 

But darkly mirrored now in bearded men. 
Now we troop home where burns the candle-light 
The mother sets for us. We keep the tryst to-night. 



g2 THE ROAD WE CAME 



XII 

We keep the tryst, not questioners of each heart, 
But rather as known ships that pass at sea, 
And speak in passing, and hail cheerily, 

Before the gale shall bear them far apart. 

What cargoes for what mart 

Beareth your laboring craft across the blue? 

Is all now well with you? Report us well." 
Thus runs the seaman's hail ; so runs ours, too. 

Then looking sadly back across the swell, 
We watch each other's canvas slowly run 
To ports where we would be or to oblivion. 

XIII 

And yet there are such toilsome heights to scale. 
Such pleasant valleys where the soul may win 
Fair courts of ease to make its dwelhng in, 

That it is easier praising than to rail 

When wrongs win, virtues fail ; 

And it is easier being false than true 

When Honor bids us wage a losing war— 
For life is oft the choice between the two. 

And we, for ease, love what we should abhor. 
Yet what avails our wealth or power or fame 
If Virtue flaunts in rags and Honor cries her shame? 



THE ROAD WE CAME 



XIV 



93 



Here in life's noon we put our toiling by 

To rest a little in the grateful shade. 

From battles past and struggles unessayed, 
A moment here we turn in ease to lie. 
To-morrow we shall try 

Our strength anew upon the stricken field, 
And put forth all our power, and haply gain. 

Or pass in silence on our lifted shield. 
One thing we know: No victory can stain 

The fallen hero whom to earth it flings, 

Or lift the conquering knave on strong, upbearing 
wings. 

XV 

From its lone heights the soul looks calmly down 

Upon the mortal in its narrow groove. 

Backward and forward swift the shuttles move, 
AVeaving the web of life. Whether men frown 
Upon the work or crown 

With winged praise, it shall in naught avail 
Except the soul glows in the web we spin. 

If absent, then, though victors, we shall fail ; 
If there, though vanquished, we shall surely win. 

We weave the fabric, and receive our due : 

Only the weaver knows if it be false or true. 



94 



THE ROAD WE CAME 



XVI 



Only the weaver knows what pain and care 

Have sped the flying shuttle in its course ; 

What tangled threads have neutralized his force, 
What poverty has kept his pattern bare. 
Yet it shall still be fair, 

If he but follow beauty till he die. 

Serene in faith, he keeps his low estate ; 
Vanquished, he puts the ended combat by, 

And conquers conquest while he learns to wait. 
For him the stars shall bend, the high gods toil, 
Who shall betray no trust, no high pursuit assoil. 



NEAR SUNSET 

Sometimes, from fields grown sadly strange 
Since robins fled, by woodland path, 

Straight up the valley-head I range 
To reap the day's poor aftermath. 

The spiders spin across my face ; 

The startled partridge, fleeing, makes 
A sudden silence in the place 

The rasping cricket scarcely breaks. 

I climb the hill : the top draws nigh ; 

The path grows light again, and lo/ 
The pale new moon, the crimson sky, 

The village on the plain below! 

And weary huskers, binding long 
On dusky slopes, still bind by night, 

While, like the murmur of a song, 
Their talk is blown across the height. 

95 



INDIAN SUMMER 

What heights of rest are in these silences! 

What thirst of plains the sunlight seems to slake! 

The meadows bask ; no bitter north winds wake 
The tree-tops from their fruitless dream of ease. 
The slow brooks murmur like a swarm of bees, 

And some shy creature in the tangled brake 

Darts and is still, and trooping sparrows make 
A moment's chatter in the cedar-trees, 
And then on far skies quickly seem to cease, 

Or, wheeling, drop behind some stubbled mound ; 
But all day long the brooks find no release, 

And lift their wandering undertones of sound. 
This is the year's full flower, the crown of peace, 

The sunhght's harvest, and the south wind's bound. 



96 



IN NOVEMBER 

Oh, mark how through the latticework of brown — 
November's trees — the hghts of gray skies sift! 
No birds now sing, nor any shadows shift 

Below the sunless gables of the town ; 

But brooks run tawny, and a purple crown 
Of elder-tops the marish hollows lift, 
While haunting twitters from the thickets drift, 

And hollow pipes the gale across the down. 

Now memories like voices fill the gale — 
The joy of harvests and the hope of springs. 

And songs, though felt, unsung, and griefs that pale, 
And loves that flush, and hopes that hft on wings, 

And sunlight on the silent, winter hills, 

Thrilling anew the heart that sorrow thrills. 



97 



A WINTER MORNING 

The snow-drifts pile the window-ledge, 
The frost is keen, the air is still, 
The lane that lies below the hill 
Is drifted even with the hedge. 
Gray skies, and dark trees shaken bare, 
Blue smoke that rises straight in air, — 
While down the west a yellow glare 
Is driven like a wedge. 



98 



IN SHADOW 

From the town where I was bred 

I have been so long away, 

In its streets I met to-day 
Both the Hving and the dead. 

Though the upland paths we trod^ 

Long ago, are overgrown, 

When to-day I walked alone 
Your step sounded on the sod. 

Long I climbed the eastern hill 

Till the woods lay at my feet; 

In my heart your own heart beat. 
On my hand your touch lay still. 

Nothing there had changed, and there, 
Through that hushed and shadowed place, 
I passed, meeting face to face 

My old fancies everywhere. 

99 



lOo I^ SHADOW 

In still valleys I walked through, 
My heart's throbbing deafened me 
Suddenly I seemed to see 

Jealous Death's dim shape of you. 



MARSYAS 

Round one piping on the mountain 
Timid forest creatures drew ; 

Song of bird and purl of fountain 
Woke anew 
In the oaten pipe wherein he blew. 

Ivy sprung, and myrtle nodded, 
Grasses rippled, sedges grew ; 

Silver-winged and tawny-bodied 
Wild bees flew 

Thickets over, meadows through and 
through. 

With the swift sweep of the swallow. 
Springtime seemed to catch the earth, 

Sunlight flooded steep and hollow 
With new birth. 
Woke the hillside to the river's mirth. 



I02 MARSYAS 

Quiet things he loved the best : 
Songs of springs that bubble up 

Through wet grasses, weight-oppressed ; 
Bees that sup, 
Droning in the almond-blossom's cup ; 

Beat of wings that swiftly pass ; 

Sounds of locust-horns that made 
Subtle music in the grass. 

These he played. 

While shy things came to him, unafraid. 

Ceased he. Silent grew the fountain ; 

Fled each creature to its lair ; 
Solemn wood and silent mountain, 

Soundless air, 

Woke to find the winter everywhere. 



THE DREAMER 

Oh, I have sailed 

Where others failed, 
Found polar seas and Happy Isles, 
And gone a million million miles 

Through summer and through snowing! 

And I have seen 

Old Pan between 
The oaken vistas, as I passed 
Low banks Lycaeus overcast, 
His oaten pipe a-blowing. 

Sometimes on seas 

Sweet melodies 
Of phantom voices fill the sky, 
And fairy barges pass me by, 
Bound out for El Dorado. 

Through frozen noons 

And torrid moons. 
Toward stranger noons and moons, I steer : 
Through wood and waste I journey near 
The Valley of the Shadow. 



I04 



THE DREAMER 

In crowded throngs 

I hear strange songs, 
And blare of trumpets sounding by 
Old villages and castles high 
And pied and daisied hollows ; 

Or see, between 

The spring's young green. 
The gleaming shoulder, pearly white, 
Of laughing dryad, in swift flight. 
The gay faun hotly follows. 

Sometimes the night 

Is filled with hght, 
And all the sweet myrrh-thickets glow 
With softened yellow, when below 
A thousand lanterns quiver. 

Through outer glooms 

And trailing blooms, 
I sweep into enchanted lands, 
Fast skimming o'er the golden sands 
Of Bagdad's storied river. 

And dancing girls 

In dreamy whirls. 
By palace doors that brightly gleam. 
Float through Hke visions in a dream, 



THE DREAMER 105 

The sweet thought follows after. 
And eyes meet eyes 
In love's surprise, 
Hearts beat, and loud the waihng flute 
And murmur of the drowsy lute 
Do mimic happy laughter. 

The grace that gleams 
In poets' dreams 
And lovers' thoughts I still pursue ; 
For me the sunhght paints the dew 
And lilies perfume-laden. 
To me bird-song 
And joy belong. 
And poles come near, and stars draw nigh ; 
For me doth droop the laughing eye 
Of arch and tender maiden. 



ONCE WITH DAPHNE 

I WITH Daphne used to meet 

Where the rushes belled our feet 

On still mornings. Straightway then 

We forsook the haunts of men 

For the cool and secret glooms 

Where the unsunned laurel blooms. 

Round her waist she deftly drew 

Her bright fawn-skin, and laughed through 

That black tangle of her hair, 

That unwinding but left bare 

Half her shoulder's gleaming grace. 

Then she turned her perfect face. 

And with murmured laughter shook 

Down cool dew-baths. Straight we took 

Flight again, and hastened on 

To a valley dusk and wan. 

And so strange we heard anew 

Our old footsteps running through, 

zo6 



ONCE WITH DAPHNE 

And so dim that each one's f?ce 
Seemed a shadow in the place, 
And so still the wind was heard 
Blowing on the beak of bird, 
And the woodland noises seemed 
Something soundless that we dreamed. 
There her voice was like a flame 
When, betimes, she spoke my name, 
And that whispered speech of hers 
Drowned the woodland choristers; 
Drowned th' elusive murmuring 
Of the bubbling, hidden spring ; 
Drowned the ghosts of winds a-search 
For the vibrant leaf of birch. 
Ah, how httle wise men know 
Where we happy dreamers gol 



107 



THE FLIGHT 

Along the lonely mountain 
And down the dusky vale, 

He took by scaur and tangle 
A path without a trail. 

No bird sang on that journey, 
And, piping through the glade, 

No brown young shepherd hurried 
From sun to happier shade. 

There was no wind ; the tree-tops 
Seemed frozen on the sky : 

There was no sound ; the wild-woods 
Gave forth no wild thing's cry. 

He saw no foe before him, 

He saw none in the rear, 
Yet ever seemed to hurtle 

The wild, avenging spear. 



THE FLIGHT 

The sunlight made his shadow 
One crouching at his knees ; 

The darkness hid the leering face 
Of hate among the trees. 

He thought he heard low whispers, 
And stealthy foemen glide, 

As all his dark pursuers 

Closed round on every side. 

Yet never hand was hfted 
Against him in that place, 

And never grim avenger 

With him stood face to face. 

He was his own sad victim ; 

His was the slayer's part : 
For ever sped the arrow — 

The sin within his heart. 



109 



THE STRAYED REVELER 

As she flees up the mountain-side 

The valley is astir 
With gay companions, racing wide 

In vain pursuit of her. 

In every tangled copse they seem 

To see her streaming hair, 
And where the wild, white lilies gleam, 

Her face a lily there. 

But laughing, hand to side to still 

The beating of her heart, 
Tiptoe upon the lonely hill 

She stands, with lips apart. 

The gay rout passes, and there falls 

A silence in the place ; 
Again the cuckoo softly calls, 

The watchful squirrels race. 



THE STRAYED REVELER m 

Then, like a sigh among the trees, 

A wind is softly heard, 
And, like a leaf blown down the breeze. 

There darts a songless bird. 

For one swift moment then she slips 

Into a world apart : 
She thinks of mold upon her lips 

And dust about her heart. 



IN MASQUERADE 

Now every twig 's a gleaming lance 
With jeweled haft of dazzling frost, 
And withered tops of weeds, once tossed. 

Are frozen in a spectral trance. 

The moon is blown a silver boat 
Across the soundless upper seas ; 
A beetling castle stand the trees, 

The valley is a bridgeless moat. 

Beyond the meadow winding down 
The dusky hollow to the sea. 
Beyond the unstirred poplar-tree, 

I seek two lights within the town. 

They glitter like a serpent's eyes. 
And waiting in their luring glow, 
The serpent-soul I seek, I know. 

Sits there in woman's sweetest guise. 



SIR LAUNCELOT 

Near Camelot the rivers meet 
The lane where once he rode with her: 
He rides, and sees a dead wind stir 

The palhd waters at his feet. 

He hears the windless thickets stirred 
By some wild creature. O'er the grass 
He sees the hawk's gray shadow pass, 

Yet knows it not from leaf or bird. 

Now he has come where fancies reign 
Now though he flees, he soon returns ; 
Like flame his heart within him burns ; 

His mind is like a turning vane. 

In crypts he vainly tries to pray — 
There troop the burdens of gay songs ; 
In crowded inns he jests of wrongs, 

But feels his great heart giving way. 

"3 



114 



SIR LAUNCELOT 

His soul is like a hunted thing 
'Twixt hell and heaven. Each kiss that drew 
Their lips together thrills anew, 

And then becomes a serpent's sting. 



A POET 

Three things he knew : the shock that sorrow brings, 
The woodland's secrets, and one woman's heart. 
These made the gamut of his flame-wrought art, — 
Grief, truth, and love : from these the poet springs. 



"5 



THE FLIGHT TO THE HILLS 

Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the 
heights had arisen, 
The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the 
mist in the vale ; 
Like a lark on the wing in the dawn I sang, like a 
guiltless one freed from his prison. 
As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw 
no one on my trail. 

For at night one had come to my couch in the first 
dreamless hours of my slumber, 
Put hand to my forehead, and whispered : " Up, 
David ! and make no delay ; 
For against thee the king in his wrath has set murderers 
and spies without number, 
So haste to escape from their clutches ere the hire- 
lings shall block every way." 

ii6 



THE FLIGHT TO THE HILLS ny 

So I rose and went hastily forth : with one bound passed 

the door where the watchman lay sleeping, 
Slipped fast by the moonlighted wall till we came to 

the last city gate ; 
One blow, and the gateman lay prone ; one creak, and 

forth I went creeping ; 
"With God!" cried my friend as he vanished, and 

left me alone to my fate. 

So I took the straight road for the cherishing hills, with 
each step my heart growing lighter ; 
For like an old song just recalled was the scent of 
the grasses I trod ; 
And far in the vale to his mate in the wood the bulbul 
sang songs to delight her ; 
And sweet was the chime of the brook as it swirled 
through the rock-studded sod. 

At times I would pass by a fold in the dark and hear 
the shy sheep's muffled bleating. 
Or hear the lone bark of a fox, or the scurry of feet 
from my path ; 
For this was the time of the hunter and hunted, the 
place of their meeting ; 
And I laughed as I thought of my flight from the 
town and of Saul and his wrath. 



Ii8 THE FLIGHT TO THE HILLS 

How my heart leaped up to the game as I ran, for I 
was the north wind's brother, 
As keen as the hare to scent foe, as swift as the fox 
to flee ; 
So as I thought of Saul's men on my track, and stum- 
bhng against one another. 
Wearied and worn with the chase, I shouted aloud 
in my glee. 

Still dark was the east as I left the plain and sprang 
from boulder to boulder, 
Up to the hills that nurtured me, mother of eagles 
and men ; 
Till I stood at last on the crest of the ridge, and look- 
ing back over my shoulder. 
Saw the sun like a flower of fire break cover and 
bloom again. 

Startled, the slow, brown sheep rose stumbhng out of 
the damp, matted grasses 
Where they had slept, snuffed wildly, then paused, 
then thundered away, 
Like a rain-swollen brook that in spring goes roaring 
and leaping through new mountain passes ; 
Startled, I too turned and fled ere the shepherds 
could follow and slay. 



THE FLIGHT TO THE HILLS n^ 

Then the days went by Hke lonely birds, and never a 
bird went singing ; 
With hands at my knees I dozed, or watched through 
the glare of light : 
But never a dust-cloud rose on the plain from the feet 
of messengers bringing 
Any word of Saul and his anger to bestir me again 
to my flight. 

And nightly I lay in the moss till I heard the snarHng, 
low cough of the leopard. 
All preyless, go seeking at dawn his lair in the inner- 
most hills ; 
And saw afar, like ants on the slopes, the sheep, trailing 
after their shepherd. 
Go down from the fold to the vale, where the water 
fell carded in rills. 

And I had no task by day but to watch the gray leaves 
of the olive-tree changing, 
And the nesthngs take wing from their nests and 
flutter and fly away ; 
And watch from the dawn till the dove-colored eve the 
slow sun steadily ranging. 
While a lizard asleep on a stone in the heat was the 
sun-dial marking my day. 



I20 THE FLIGHT TO THE HILLS 

For I had no flocks to fold at night, or no herds to 
lead from the mountains 
When the wolves came savage with hunger or thiev- 
ing bands held our ways ; 
And I had no harp with the wind to vie, or to mate 
with the music of fountains, 
Or contend with the lark when he rose at dawn and 
sang to the Lord his praise. 

So long I had dwelt with men, I had lost the sense of 
each wild thing's reason ; 
The wilderness kept its secret, but gave of its dearth 
and pain : 
Yet I hid in the hills, in my fear of the king, till there 
came that desolate season 
When the flocks go down to the lowlands ; then I too 
fled to the plain. 

I had fled like a hare from the whim of a king ; I had 
bent hke a reed to his passion : 
He who rests from endeavor, though just, grows 
unjust ; though right, lives a he. 
So I bend no more, flee no more from him ; but strong 
in the right of my soul, I will fashion 
Some shield to withstand his arrow and sword ; and 
win, though I die. 



THE MESSENGER 

With God's grace, whence all mercies spring, 
The duke's young minstrel said that he 

Would bear a message to the king. 
The men-at-arms jeered openly, 

But those who knew the merry lad 

Grew grave, thinking him famine-mad. 

But said the duke : " Who goes will die, 
And he will die who stays ; so go," 

And put the pictured arras by, 

And passed in silence with his woe. 

But loud the minstrel laughed, and said: 

The road is short unto the dead." 

Theirs was a wild and bare domain, 
And neighbor to the barren shore : 

There wheeled the gull above the plain. 
And hemlocks mocked the salt sea's roar ; 

Ever the fog came trooping in 

The parched and whitened fields to win. 



122 THE MESSENGER 

So flat the realm, one scarce could say 
Where land left off and sea began. 

Through all a slow stream wound its way, 
And mile on mile the marshes ran 

North, west, and south ; but in the east 

The sea droned ever like a priest. 

One would have called it all too bare 
To tempt marauders : cattle throve, 

But like rank weeds, without a care ; 
A few sheep fed, a scraggy drove ; 

A few nets swung upon the bay — 

And over all the duke held sway. 

Then came the count : why, no one knew. 

Some said their duchess was too fair, 
And some, their old lord haply flew 

His petted falcon everywhere, 
Which vexed the count. But there he came. 
And threatened them with sword and flame. 

All June he stormed against their walls ; 

With blood their rose-trees blossomed red ; 
Their bravest lay upon the palls. 

With dirge unsung and mass unsaid : 
For priests and choir, to archers grown, 
Among the dead were thickly strown. 



THE MESSENGER 



123 



Their arrows gone, their children wrought 
Stout bolts, and sharpened them in flame ; 

Their wives beside them grimly fought ; 

Their bowstrings frayed, their maidens came, 

And sitting on the ramparts, there 

They braided bowstrings of their hair. 

Hourly some famine-maddened one 

Leaped screaming from the walls and died ; 

All day the duke sat in the sun. 

Moving his head from side to side ; 

He heard the death-watch tick at noon, 

And hounds go whimpering at the moon. 

Then came that last despairing night : 
The minstrel sauntered forth to ride ; 

He gaily mounted for his flight ; 

They flung the creaking postern wide, 

And silent watched his fair face loom 

An instant on the outer gloom. 

The count's wild crew at supper lay 

All weaponless along his path. 
Some stumbled out to block his way. 

While others cursed in helpless wrath ; 
But turning in his saddle, he 
Mocked at them all in jeering glee. 



124 ^-^^ MESSENGER 

Fresh from the siege behind grim walls, 
He faced the windy road with joy ; 

He heard a night-bird's strident calls, 
And answered like a happy boy, 

Glad just to be in open air. 

With God's soft twilight everywhere. 

And oh, the rhythmic thud of feet 

Of his roan steed, his shoulders' thrust. 

Making the sense of joy complete ; 
The curling, coiling clouds of dust, 

That, drifting rearward gray and wan, 

Made all his past obhvion! 

Fair towns beyond those dolorous glades 
And bustling courtyards lured him now : 

He heard in dreams the praise of maids, 
And felt the laurel on his brow ; 

And saw the people round him throng, 

Who rode through death to mend a wrong. 

A murmur reached him while he dreamed. 
Like puffs of wind before a rain. 

As all his fierce pursuers streamed 
Behind him in a stragghng train. 

It grew until the very ground 

To him seemed tremulous with sound. 



THE MESSENGER J25 

Then arrows sped about him : some 

Dropped in the grass Hke meadow-larks ; 

And some flew past with spiteful hum 
Of angry bees ; while two, hke sparks, 

Stung through the covering of his arm, 

But clung there lightly, without harm. 

He saw the starved beast he bestrode 

111 matched those of the count's wild men, 

So turned him sharply from the road 
Along the bhnd ways of the fen. 

All winter he had wandered there 

With falcon, hunting crane and hare. 

It was a swart and gruesome place, 
Where nothing seemed to him aright : 

Each still pool was a dead man's face ; 
The pallid sky was void of light ; 

And where the wind went through the flags 

A gibbering witch danced in her rags. 

He saw slow water-creatures rise 

From out the wrinkling pools, and glare 

At him with cold, unmoving eyes. 

There seemed but venom in that stare. 

As if they knew his end, and came 

Unhurrying, to view his shame. 



126 THE MESSENGER 

A fog had blotted out the sky 
And all the dear, familiar stars. 

Like one who knows the world is nigh, 
Yet sees naught through his prison-bars, 

He heard his foemen press around, 

And all the marsh astir with sound. 

He heard them strive to follow him : 
Some gained, but most went wandering 

Through dank morasses stark and grim ; 
He heard their neighing horses spring 

Through splashing reaches to their doom ; 

He heard them calling from the tomb. 

Such shadows sprang athwart the place, 
He knew not foe from shadow ; one, 

Trembling, he thrust fair in the face. 
And though he felt his good sword run, 

Unchecked, untouched, a full yard by, 

He paused, expectant of a cry. 

He knew not when their shouting ceased. 
But suddenly became aware 

Of utter hush, wherein his beast 

Dragged sucking hoofs across that lair 

Of water-rat and newt. Something, 

Lost soul or bat, went by awing. 



THE MESSENGER 127 

His path lost, glad to end his woe 
And that sick silence holding him, 

He yearned to see some valiant foe 
Come looming on the night's dun rim, 

To end all with one generous thrust, 

And leave him sleeping with the just. 

Glad if he there might stand at bay, 

With all his foemen set around, 
Boldly he took his valorous way. 

What was that sibilant, low sound? 
Was it their leader's cautious " Hist ! '* 
Or serpent's anger, having missed? 

The sprawling legs and drooping head 
Of his tired steed enraged him so, 

That, all his pity being dead. 

He struck him many a cruel blow. 

As well expect song from dead lark, 

Or color from the rose at dark. 

He might have been a smitten rock 

For any feeling he had shown. 
It came upon him with a shock — 

This was the petty end, alone 
With this spent creature, past desire. 
Past dread, past pain, a burnt-out fire. 



128 THE MESSENGER 

Burning to leave the place, he gave 
No backward look unto his steed's 

Shut eyes and heaving flanks, but clave 
The breast-high ranks of hostile reeds. 

No creature rustled through the grass ; 

Even the wind had ceased to pass. 

Then hungering for companionship. 
He longed to meet some Hving thing, 

Even to see some wild brute slip 
Beside him there, or fiercely spring 

To blot him out. It grew a hope 

That with such creature he might cope. 



It came to be his only care 

To win his faithful steed and die, 

Cold cheek by jowl beside him there. 
In vain : no path could he descry ; 

The tangled grass, glad to assail 

The poor lost creature, left no trail. 

Then quicksands seized him, like a thing 
Half human, but without a breath 

Of human pity. Mad to spring 
Beyond that clutch of sordid death. 



THE MESSENGER 129 

He screamed, writhed, prayed, cursed God, 

and wept: 
The sullen sands their grim hold kept. 



This, then, the end of his desire 
Of winning glory and renown ! 

His heart, in impotent, vain fire, 

Deemed it of all his woe the crown — 

To sink in silence in this glade, 

Just to enrich a lizard's shade. 



To be bereft of all his sky 

And peaceful burial in the sun. 

Where men might come, and softly sigh, 
And speak of all his glory won — 

He whitened as the grim thought came 

To pierce his tortured heart with flame. 



Then rain fell, little spiteful flings 
Out of an impotent, mean heart. 

There seemed mere malice in its stings, 
As one might throw a headless dart 

Into a dead foe, after fight. 

When all his friends had taken flight. 



130 



THE MESSENGER 

Spent with his frenzy, hands to face, 
Down to the sands his forehead fell. 

How long he brooded in the place, 

With mind benumbed, he could not tell, 

But looking up, about to die. 

He heard a lark sing in the sky. 

He heard a lark sing in the sky 

Above the slowly whitening east. 
It seemed God's message from on high, 
Better than book or bell or priest. 
" Not what the lark does, but aspires, 
Crowns it," he said; " so my desires. 

" The body is but potter's clay, 
A blow may shatter into dust. 
It passes in a little day ; 

But soul stays soul : therefore I trust. 
The man that I have tried to be 
Not even God can take from me." 



CHIVALRY 

Low as my lady's state is high, 

I lead a life apart, 
Yet hopeless love has lifted me 

Up to her lonely heart. 

A bow-shot from her battlements 

There winds our quiet lane ; 
Beyond its dusty hedge a stream 

Slips through the grassy plain. 

A wild wind races through the land 

And rocks each gnarly tree ; 
Here wheels the gull, here sweeps the brine. 

Here booms the distant sea. 

Betimes a village maid trips past. 

Or hooded friars nod. 
Dreaming, on ambling mules, of ways 

That their dear Lord had trod. 
131 



132 



CHIVALRY 

With helm unlaced, at times a knight 
Rides through the languid noon : 

As God has granted wish of mine, 
Grant he each fair knight's boon! 

Yet I have asked no more than this, 

That I may daily hear 
Along our lonely countryside 

Her rein-bells jingling clear; 

And nightly in her casement see 

Her candle shine afar, 
When through the mist, athwart mine eyes, 

It glimmers like a star. 

Joy has no wings for me ; no grief 

Can plunge me in despair : 
I keep the level ways of those 

Who pray, yet need not prayer. 



ULYSSES GROWN OLD 

His windows open to the sun, 

And all his house is warm and sweet 

With April, yet such strange chills run 
Through his shrunk form and palsied feet 

He thinks that winter has begun. 

All day the far seas beckon him. 

The hollow waves roar round his isle ; 

But he who longed to pass the rim 
Of all the known, content the while, 

Sits in a corner cramped and dim. 

Betimes his vacant features shine 

As some faint murmur from the shore, 

Or whiff from off the blowing brine, 
Stirs his lost thoughts ; a moment more 

Four walls make his horizon-line. 



134 



ULYSSES GROWN OLD 

He has no memory of the past ; 

He recks him not of time to come; 
Child-eyed he wonders at the blast, 

Or cowers when the wild bees hum 
And darting birds their shadows cast. 

Careless of how the days are sped, 
His mind is hke a palace wan, 

With ghostly talk between the dead, 
Where one dim candle flickers on. 

And all the happy guests have fled. 



ROMANCE 

Again my king would sail away, 
Because the land was tame, 

And foes there met were wisps of hay 
Unto his heart of flame. 

All day from his high lattices 
He watched the tumbling sea : 

The maidens of the sculleries 
Went down the lanes in glee ; 

The young brown reapers lolled afield ; 

The cattle stood in stall ; 
The watchman slept beneath his shield, 

Upon the sunHt wall. 

The princess and a page between 
The ranks where lilies flower, 

Leaning below the liHes' screen, 
With kisses marked the hour. 



136 ROMANCE 

Yet heedless from his lattices 
The king still looked without : 

The north wind blowing in the trees 
Was like a battle-shout : 



Betimes he thought the leafy lane 
Broke white before the blast ; 

Betimes a gull's wing in the rain 
Seemed like a slanting mast. 

He rose and passed the seneschal, 
Who followed in a dream 

And let the unseen beakers fall 
And let the wine-butts stream. 



He led his comrades to the sand. 

Eager and old as he, 
They launched their bark, and left the land 

In sweet discovery. 

Seaward they drove : the roaring main 

Leaped up to meet the rail ; 
Loud shrilled the blast, loud rang the rain 

Upon the windy sail. 



ROMANCE 137 

And seething waves joined in the race ; 

Like horses wild with pain, 
They set the ship a madman's pace 

And shook each whitened mane. 



Where broke the tall wave-crests of green 

They saw their old gods go ; 
To them the hidden was the seen, 

And one were weal and woe. 

The vaporous coasts they ever fled, 
The purple isles they passed ; 

Dearer to them the way that led 
Into the stinging blast. 

And dear the black flaws on the lee, 

And dear the sleeted rain ; 
For them the wide, mysterious sea 

Was still their best domain. 



THE JOURNEY 

At night, when myrtle bells aswing 
Fill the bare places round the spring 
With ghostly whispers, and the moon 
Makes midnight like a ghostly noon ; 

When even flitter-mice are still ; 
Then little folk troop down the hill 
Into the gardens poets keep 
Hard by the pleasant town of Sleep. 

Their torches flare ; their dance is set 
Between five stalks of mignonette. 
Then armed gallants click the heel 
And bow to dames who wait the reel. 

Such dames! There has not been such grace 
Since all the wood-nymphs left the place : 
They courtesy, pause, and circle round 
Upon the sward, yet make no sound. 
X38 



THE JOURNEY 

Long since I quite forgot to dance, 
I have no need for sword or lance, 
But I would follow close at hand 
When they set out for fairy-land. 

No doubt it is a tiresome flight : 
The path runs up, there is no light. 
And on sheer heights one hears the beat 
Of water far beneath his feet. 



And in still valleys dark and dim 
He hears his own voice calling him ; 
And his own shadow is a flame 
That passes back the road he came. 

Once there, I 'm sure I 'd find good cheer,- 

Indeed, I might remain a year, — 

And haply I might learn to know 

If some strange things we hear are so. 

I 'd like to know if it be true 

Of Cinderella's coach and shoe ; 

If sly Queen Mab yet mends her ways ; 

And where the fair Kilmeny strays. 



39 



140 



THE JOURNEY 

I 'd sit with Merlin in his ring, 

And listen to the talking spring ; 

Or hear the magic-throated bird 

Sing round the pool that Kynon stirred. 

I have not seen them yet,— have you? — 
But some night, through the falling dew, 
We '11 leave the pleasant town of Sleep 
And deftly on the dancers creep. 



IN EXILE 

Some day I may retake the road 

To dreamland's sweet oblivion, 
Though now I keep my bare abode 

In streets my late companions shun. 

To nooks below the greenwood tree 
They call and call ; in sweet disguise 

Of bloom and song they beckon me, 
And lure me in each maiden's eyes. 

But nights they leave their haunts and throng 
About me. When my tasks are done — 

Some day— I '11 put them into song, 
And find my happy country won. 



I4t 



IN THE SOUTH 

Felix. Turn from me, dear, that I may see your face 

As first I saw it on that day in spring 

When we began this tangled web of ours. 

No ; just a httle farther— so ; that 's it ; 

And Hft your eyes up to that red-tiled roof 

Where sit the pigeons dozing in the sun. 

Ah, that is right ; and there 's the grave half-smile 

That curves the left half of your perfect lips 

Above their fellow-half, all tenderness. 

That was the sweet irregularity 

That won my second look, and so won me, 

That day, when, coming from the fishing-fleet, 

I first saw you, and dreamed that life began. 

Stay! Do not move yet! Let me drink it in— 

The round, slim throat, browned by our Southern sun, 

The dark hair falling to the half-shut eyes. 

That seemed deep pools where Truth might dwell 

within ; 

142 



IN THE SOUTH 



143 



The small, round chin, full-tilted in its pride ; 
And all the fair, indubitable grace 
Of your slim presence dawning full on me, 
As day breaks with us out of sudden night. 

Adf'iemie. I know the day. I thought you overbold, 
And flushed a little, and then slowly smiled, 
Seeing you saw me, and yet saw me not. 

Felix. Ah, that is true. I thought I saw your soul 
Glow in the doubtful beauty of your face — 
A water-lily on the half-seen pool. 
Yes, that I cling to : it was first your soul 
That drew me to you ; it was pure and white — 
Like moonlight shining on the waterways, 
Like day when it first breaks a flower of flame 
Above the cool hills where God sits enthroned, 
Like heaven itself — all that your soul was like. 
And then I woke to all your beauty, dear — 
Eyes, lips, and face — that perfect face that seemed 
Kin to the lilies that our young girls bear 
To their strange first communion in the spring. 
Then you, you grew my sun, my stars, my all, 
A lamp to light my hastening footsteps home, 
My dream of heaven and my last thought at night, 
The thought that marked the coming of each day. 



144 



IN THE SOUTH 



Adrienne. I know you said such things to me that I 
Grew vexed at first, and sometimes half afraid. 
And Marie waited for you ; she should hear 
The things you said : I had no right to know. 

Felix. Oh, Marie, Marie ! Why now use that foil 
To parry words that I must say to you ? 
We never loved ; she was my friend, and I 
Less than a brother, little more than friend 
One meets with smiles, and passes, and forgets. 

Adrietute. It was not right to love you, thinking she — 

Felix. Ah, what is right to love? Love is a tide 
That sweeps us on through strange abysmal deeps, 
Sight, feeling, soul all lost in that one sense, 
Half agony, half joy, of being borne 
All unresisting by resistless force. 
I had the right to love you, as my soul 
Aspired to heaven, as plants turn to the sun, 
As little rivers run into the sea : 
I loved you with the hopes, joys, fears, desires 
Of all my future woven into dreams. 
I loved you purely, as men kneel to pray ; 
I loved you humbly, as they talk with God ; 
I loved you with the strength of steadfast things— 



IN THE SOUTH 



145 



Rocks, mountains, seas, and the serene, high stars ; 
I loved you, and shall love you till I die. 

Adrieufie. Oh, you are true ! I know that you are 
good, 
And all my heart is torn — 

Felix. But not with love. 

You seemed to give what you gave not at all. 
Oh, you who mask all your indifference 
Under shy speech and gentle, intimate ways. 
The heart of sorrow follows after you, 
And through the guarded nunnery of your soul 
Strange ghosts must walk at times to vex your peace. 
God rights us in the end, and gives to you 
No skill in judging men. Oh, you shall find 
Your love grown loveless, and how hard the road 
That burns beneath the feet of the deceived! 

Adrieiine. Oh, you are cruel, cruel ! I was cold, 
And told you so. I said I had no heart. 

Felix. You said you had no heart, yet showed your 
heart. 
You know the time they thought our boats were lost, 
But I came to you through the streaming rain, 
10 



146 IN THE SOUTH 

And found you standing by the sounding shore, 
Your wet gown blown about you and your eyes 
All dark with straining through the windy dusk. 
You breathed a little sob, and your white hands 
Leaped up to me, as all your body did. 
You loved me then, oh, say you loved me then ! 

AdjHeJtne. I do not know. I know that I was glad 
Who had been frightened. It was pitiful 
That all should go into the hungry sea. 
That takes so many from us, young and old. 
Oh, do not ask me, for I cannot tell! 

Felix. You know the day that we went down the road- 
The white road past Les Martiques to the coast. 
And sat upon the sands all afternoon, 
And watched the fishing-boats turn dark or white. 
Like wind-blown flowers, as they tacked in the sun. 
The mistral blew and blew, and white spray leaped 
To rainbow-blooms from every toppling wave ; 
The surf made pleasant music to your speech — 
Shy, doubtful speech that seemed to tell me all. 
I took your hand ; you did not seem to know, 
Or did not mind — which was it, dear? For me 
Life brimmed with joy that day alone with you 
Beside the sounding sea. We go there now. 



IN THE SOUTH 



147 



Adrietine. I cannot go. My mother waits for me. 
To-morrow is a feast-day, as you know, 
And I have much to do. I cannot go. 

Felix. To-morrow is to-morrow ; this, to-day. 
See how the road is white, as it was then ; 
The mistral blows again, as on that day ; 
The orchards are in bloom. It hurts my heart 
To see them make such show of joyousness : 
The world should be in gloom, to match my thoughts. 
The sea is better — moans with broken heart. 
That 's Hke the true sea : it meets every mood ; 
Oh, there will be no rainbow-blooms to-day. 

Adrienne. I cannot go ; I hate this barren place. 

Felix. We '11 go upon the sea, then. Here 's a boat, 
Small, it is true, and mean, but well enough 
For placid waters, and this last sad time. 
And I will row you out, and laugh, and talk 
Of trivial things, and feign that we again 
Live only in each other's hearts and eyes. 
One lock of your dark hair has fallen, dear. 
Over your rounded cheek. Brush it away. 
I 'd have no curtain 'twixt me and my heaven. 



148 IN THE SOUTH 

Adrienne. I came against my wish. The wind is cold 
The sea is dolorous ; I would return. 
I like not dismal places, dismal things. 
There 's nothing here but sand and sea and sea ; 
But over there the town lies, and it laughs ; 
And I might sit within my mother's court 
And hear the people passing in the street — 
The happy people who break not their hearts. 

Felix. Oh, you are cruel, as all women are, 
And doubly so to those who love in vain. 
They pour their hearts out for you, cherish you, 
And then, some day, grown weary of it all. 
You drop your mask, and all is at an end. 
Oh, I have loved you! Say it is a dream 
That you can never love me in return, 
And that your eyes, fair stars of tenderness, 
Will never light me home, your perfect Hps 
Whisper to me in silver iterance 
The changeless words that happy lovers hear. 

Adrienne. I cannot love you ; it is all in vain. 

Felix. Oh, you — you are so little, yet so hard! 
So tender, yet unyielding! See these hands, 
All brown and sinewy from the Mother Sea, 



IN THE SOUTH 149 

How easily might I crush out your hfe, 

And leave you white and soulless on the sands, 

No more to be a snare unto the heart. 

But you will trip back through the hot sunshine, 

Into the pleasant town, and chat and laugh. 

And sit within your mother's court, and dream 

Of other lovers who will follow me. 

And match their tenderness with tender eyes. 

I cannot bear it ; I had rather go 

Into the dark vault where the damned go hushed 

With bent brows brooding on unending woes, 

Lacking the comfort both to hear and tell. 

Since sympathy died in them at the door. 

Adrienne. Oh, you would be a coward, then, and 
take 
The life God gave you for a little thing 
Who did not know her own heart! Oh, be brave! 
No day yet closed because a woman's eyes 
Shone not with love, or that her happy feet 
Went ever up and down another's stairs. 

Felix. Oh, you would taunt me thus who gave you all, 
And cast my love beneath your feet, and boast 
That you will travel on another's stairs! 
It shall not be! Rather I 'd take your hand, 



1 50 IN THE SOUTH 

And lead you down to dark oblivion. 

See where the far town drowses in its peace, 

And meadows bask in light. The radiant blue 

Of sea and sky shall change not, though you 're dead, 

And all the sea be blue above your grave. 

Look to them all, and come to other dreams. 

In far, strange fields of dolor you and I 

Shall wander henceforth like a driven, cloud, 

Blown by the winds of dark regret and woe. 

Yet had I rather go through hell with you 

Than roam alone the fields of paradise. 

Some flame from my great passion yet shall burn 

The barriers of your vast indifference. 

And something in your eyes shall wake for me 

And make hell heaven. Oh, time is strong, and I 

AVill lavish all eternity to gain 

The look you gave me once, but now deny. 

Adrie?me. Oh, pity me! I am too young to sink 
In endless darkness in the silly sea. 
And just this morning I was also glad 
And sang about my tasks. Oh, pity me! 

Felix. It is for pity I would have you go. 
Youth on your brow and beauty in your eyes. 
The years would bow you to the Mother Earth, 



IN THE SOUTH l^i 

And make your form the sport of every pain, 
And withered hke an apple that the snow 
Finds still upon the bough. Better that Death 
Should make your grace immortal, and in hell 
Lost souls should see you and forget their woe. 

Adrie7i7ie. Oh, mock me not! It is so sweet to liv^e. 
The years are slow, and age is far away. 
My mother's eyes are bright, and she yet laughs. 
And she is old, or older far than I. 
I like not vexing thoughts. Yours make me sad, 
With reckoning ever with the wearing years. 
You said you loved me and my happy eyes. 
Yet see them now all tremulous with tears, 
And dark with that which darkly threatens them. 
You would not harm me— you who loved me so. 
Oh, say you would not, for you frighten me! 

Felix. For mine own sake I would not hft a hand 
Against you, dear, though God commanded it. 
That I have reaped not love, but only scorn. 
Or that cool look of yours that 's less than scorn, 
I could pass by, but this is different. 
From your false self I needs must save yourself. 
You loved me once, I know you loved me once. 
And love that budded here shall bloom elsewhere. 



152 



IN THE SOUTH 

In hell, perhaps ; but it shall surely bloom. 

The rose will not turn lily — not with love. 

Now fickleness has tried to make your rose 

Into a lily. Ah, I know the one 

Of whom you dream to wear upon your heart. 

I saw you greet him in the market-place 

As I was idling there. Oh, such a look! 

Eyes, cheek, and brow all spoke before the lips 

Could utter that soft, rolling name of his. 

You only spoke his name? What need of more 

When all your heart leaped to your lifted eyes. 

And love upon your white brow seemed impressed 

As clear as if God stooped to write it there? 

God stooped, I say? No, God would never stoop 

To write a lie upon a woman's face. 

My rose shall bloom yet, little matter where. 

Now it may be that in some other world. 

When we two, all alone, come fresh from pain 

Of fruitless living, coming all alone, 

And sick for home, through our own loneliness 

May feel heart leap to heart, as once of old, 

And walk through fields of fair forgetfulness. 

Oh, love! let us forget! What is hell for. 

And all these faults of ours that harrow us, 

But just to be the stairs by which we rise? 

Come, love, we mount! 



IN THE SOUTH 



153 



Adrieitne. Oh, take me to my home! 

My mother needs me, and my heart is sore 
With thinking of the days that are to be 
When my feet go not in and out her door. 
She loved you always, thought you strong and brave ; 
Yet you would fling her joy unto the sea, 
That she shall hear moan ever at her gate, 
And watching while I come not, hear my sob 
Harrow the night for her in every wind. 
And move along the shingle with each wave. 
What peace in heaven or hell could come to you, 
Knowing she thought that you had died to save 
What you had slain? Oh, heavy is the chain 
That you shall drag through all eternity! 
My face beside you yet shall come to be 
Hell's sharpest sting, that you would fain forget, 
Yet cannot. Take me home! 

Felix. Oh, say no more ! 

I give it up — all. You shall have your way. 
Your face a sting? I know not. It might be. 
God reaches far to punish. It might be 
Even to hell. It might be. I know not. 
But sting! Ah, that thought brings you safely home! 

Adrie7ine. My mother trusted you, not knowing this ; 
But I shall trust you, knowing, all my days. 



1^4 ^^ ^^^^ SOUTH 

Felix. I heed not trust or distrust : all I ask 
Is now to be forgotten and forget. 

Adnen?ie. I shall forget the false and hold the true 
'T was madness, and not you, that threatened me. 

Felix. What I have thought my soul cannot deny ; 
What dreamed, though unfulfilled, is still the soul: 
God tests the balance with such litde things. 

Adrienne. Vex not yourself with any ill undone 
Or wrong frustrated : good is good, wrong, wrong. 
And men through both mount up to better things. 
God 's not a huckster chaffering for men's souls. 

Felix. Now may I mount till I forget the past 
And all that grace of yours that made it dear! 
Oh, I will be a miser with my love, 
And hoard my thoughts, and live on meager fare, 
Starving my heart with dear vacuities! 
I '11 meet your eyes no more, nor think of you, 
Or think but harshly, as of forsworn things. 
And steel my mood, reiterating wrongs. 
I '11 live love down. 

Adrienne. Then I am well content. 

But now why row so furiously? Am I — 



IN THE SOUTH 155 

Felix. I would that I were home. 

Adrieniie. Your face is white, 

The sun is gone, and something hke a mist 
Blots out the land and mingles with the sea. 
Is it the rain? 

Felix. Yes, wind and driving rain. 

Adriefme. Is there then danger that you whiten so? 

Felix. There ever is with women and the sea. 

Adriejine. Yet men have loved us ever. Something 
good 
Lies in these sweet and dangerous ways of ours. 

Felix. Else had we never stayed to be deceived. 

Adrienne. Oh, I must laugh because I would not 
weep ; 
There 's dread within your face and in that sound 
Like far-off horsemen galloping this way. 
Oh, I would hide my eyes, yet do not dare ; 
Cover my ears, were doubt not darker still : 
The darkened silence hides more fearsome things 



156 /A^ THE SOUTH 

Than this gray waste and this strange, ominous sky. 

Look, not a ripple stirs the waiting sea ; 

And yet I thought a moment since I felt 

A puff of wind blow cool across my face. 

Oh, look, oh, see how that white wall sweeps down, 

And all the air is clamorous with the gale! 

Felix. The storm 's upon us! No — oh, do not rise! 
Crouch lower, here, and I will hold your hands. 
We 're in God's now, and can but wait the end. 

Adrienne. The end? What end? Must we two then 
now die? 

Felix. What end? God knows; but you must surely 
live. 
Oh, you must live to smile this venture down, 
And tell your children's children of the day 
One stormed your peace until a Greater's storm 
Swept him, in turn, to his abiding peace. 

Adriefine. If I can still be saved, then why not you? 

Felix. The sea is rising ; soon the boat will fill 
And turn us in the sea. Before I go 
I '11 bind you fast. You see this little rope? 
That 's your brave stair to lead you back to life. 



IN THE SOUTH 157 

Adrienfie. But you — you too must climb with me to 
life. 
I cannot go alone. This wild, cold sea — 
It frightens me. Oh, leave me not alone ! 
With you near me I might be almost glad. 
See, I can smile a little, almost laugh, 
Now you 're beside me. 

Felix. Dear, I cannot stay. 

My weight would drag us down. A changing wind 
Or passing ship will bring you to the shore. 
Think not of me ; I have no more the wish 
To wander up and down our streets and know 
The people smile and whisper as I pass, 
And that it irks you but to see my face 
Pass like a cloud across your happy day. 
Do dead men struggle and put forth their power. 
And sing within those withered hearts of theirs? 
Can I clasp air, and live upon the smile 
You give another? No, I long since died, 
And strength has passed from me, and all desire. 

Adrienne. But see, the mists rise. Surely that is land ! 

Felix. Like some grim, crouching beast, to see 
my end. 



158 IN THE SOUTH 

Adrien?ze. Rather to beckon you and give you 
strength. 

Felix. The far-off happy land where I have walked 
In happy dreams of you. Oh, it is well 
That it should rise again, a coast of dreams, 
For I shall tread its unreal paths no more. 

Adrienne. No dream, but real. Now the storm will 
pass. 

Felix. See that cold shimmer on the distant sea? 
That 's wind and more wind. Worse is yet to come. 

Adriejtne. Not worse, but better. Take my hands 
again. 
I '11 lift you into life. I have the strength, 
And we shall walk together all our days. 

Felix. I also have the strength to say you no. 
Remember this of me in days to come : 
He might have touched my hands, my eyes, my lips. 
But would not ; and he might have gained my love. 
Through pity, bartered for a lonely death. 
Yet turned away, in loneHness to die. 
Think not I blame you — not for one small thing. 



IN THE SOUTH 1^9 

If I have said hard things and cruel things, 

That 's but the man in me. At bottom I 

Knew you were blameless, knew that you were wise. 

Like some tired child, far from its mother's arms. 

With hands that grope for hers, I '11 sink to sleep. 

Adrie7ine. But you will try my little stair with me? 

Felix. No, no ; a thousand noes. You need not ask. 

Ad7'ic7inc. But look ! The coast is blotted out again ! 
Is this the end? 

Felix. I fear so! Where 's the rope? 

Adrienne. I cast it in the sea! 

Felix. You— you! Oh, lost! 

Adrienne. Not lost, but won. I take the stair with 
you. 



W18 



